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PUBLICATIONS

OF THE

fAORES bY SOCIETY

ESTABLISHED IN THE YEAR
MDCCCLXXXIX

VOLUME LVIII

Kirkstall Abbey from the south-east (1888)

Godfrey Bingley Collection, University of Leeds

KIRKSTALL ABBEY,

1147-1539:
AN HISTORICAL STUDY

by
GUY D. BARNES; B.A., M.Phil.

THE THORESBY SOCIETY
23 CLARENDON ROAD
LEEDS
1984

ISSN 0082-4232

CONTENTS

PREFACE
ABBREVIATIONS

I CISTERCIAN EXPANSION AND THE FOUNDATION OF
KIRKSTALL ABBEY
The Community at Barnoldswick

2 THE ABBEY ’S LANDS AND BENEFACTORS
Barnoldswick
Grants of Land, 11 §2-1260
Land at Adel and Acquisitions in the Paynel Fee
Other Land in the Leeds Area
Land around Bessacar
Some Implications of Land Tenure
Grants of Land in the Later Period

3. ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT
Granges and Lay-brothers
ExploitationofLand ..

Sheep-farming and the Production of Wool
The Economy in 1288 a
Changes in Agrarian Practice

Financial Difficulties

4 THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE MONASTERY
The Monastic Community
Intellectual Activities
The Abbey Buildings

5 EXTERNALRELATIONS _..
Relations with the King .
Relations with the Patent
Relations with other Cistercian Fioaees
Relations with the Secular Church
Relations with other Orders
The Abbot and the outside World

Vil

v1 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

6 THELAST YEARS
Economic Change
The Surrender of the House
The Fate of the Community
The Lands of Kirkstall

APPENDIX
The Abbots of Kirkstall . .

INDEX

MAP

The Abbey’s Endowments at Barnoldswick

SI
8I

88
ele)

PREFACE

A study of the history of Kirkstall Abbey was suggested to me a
number of years ago by the late Professor John Le Patourel. At that
time the works of Dom S. F. Hockey had not been written and no
full history of a Cistercian house in England or in France had been
produced.

This present work was first written as a thesis for the degree of
Master of Philosophy in the University of Leeds under the
supervision of Mr John Taylor. It was revised and prepared for
publication by the Thoresby Society under the careful guidance of
the honorary editors and of Mrs R. S. Mortimer, formerly joint
honorary editor.

Most of the previous writings about Kirkstall Abbey are to be
found in Publications of the Thoresby Society. Nineteenth-century
writers concerned themselves mainly with the editing and
publication of source material. A late medieval account of the
foundation, which nevertheless made use of earlier material, was
edited, with a translation, by E. K. Clark and published in 1895 as
‘The Foundation of Kirkstall Abbey’ (PTh.S, IV). The same year
also saw the publication by the Society of “Charters relating to the
Possessions of Kirkstall Abbey in Allerton’, edited by F. R. Kitson
and Others, and of W.T. Lancaster's work, “Possessions of
Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds’ (IV), while four years previously J.
Stansfeld’s “A Rent-Roll of Kirkstall Abbey’ (II) had provided yet
another valuable source for the study of the abbey’s land holdings.
It was not until 1904, however, that the most important of all
sources for the general history of the abbey — The Coucher Book of
Kirkstall Abbey — was issued in an edition by W. T. Lancaster and
WP Baildon (Vill)? Three years later, in 1007, W. Ht. St Jolin
Hope’s and J. Bilson’s Architectural Description of Kirkstall Abbey
appeared (XVI), providing a study in this area which still needs
little to supplement it.

here is then a gap of. nearly half-a century in the Society s
publications about the abbey until Mr John Taylor edited The
Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles (XLII); his introduction to this edition
includes a valuable account of the abbey’s literary remains.
Extensive excavations were carried out on the abbey site between
1950 and 1964 of which an account has been published in three
volumes (XLII, XLVIN and Ll). The late Professor Le Patourel

Vill KIRKSTALL ABBEY

included a short account of the abbey in a paper in which he looked
at three medieval foundations in the city of Leeds — ‘Medieval
Eeeds: Kirkstall Abbey, The Parish Chureh, Tie Medieval
Borough’ (XLVI) -— and the same volume included a_ brief
contribution by J. Sprittles on “New Grange, Kirkstall’. Most
recently (LHD, R. A. Mott has written on ‘Kirkstall Forge and
Monkish Iron-making’ and A. Lonsdale on “The Last Monks of
Kirkstall Abbey’, the latter containing valuable material which
throws light on the association between the last monks of the abbey
and recusancy in Yorkshire.

The earliest printed account of the abbey which has been traced is
An Historical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Account of Kirkstall Abbey,
published in London in 1827. The author is unknown but a
manuscript note in one copy ascribes the authorship to Mr Wood
‘at that time editor of the Leeds Intelligencer. The volume is
‘embellished’ by engravings, which it was the author’s purpose to
‘elucidate’, and includes an annotated ground plan of the abbey
buildings.

Many of the place-names which appear in the land charters of the
abbey, from Armley and Bramley on the west side, northwards
through Horsforth and Headingley, eastwards, through the many
parts of Allerton, to Roundhay, are familiar now only as districts in
the northern part of the city of Leeds. The expansion of the city in
the last two centuries has seen the building of densely packed urban
housing on most of the land which formed the abbey’s territorial
endowment. Only patches of parkland, such as Beckett Park and
Roundhay Park (both sites of former granges of the abbey), and the
small remains of the once-extensive Hawksworth wood remind us
of the agricultural basis of the abbey’s strength. When so many of
its former possessions have become part of the city of Leeds it was
indeed an appropriate and generous act when, in 1890, Colonel
J. T. North purchased the abbey site and presented it to the city to
be enjoyed by its citizens and by many others from beyond its
boundaries.

In the preparation of this study I record my grateful thanks to the
late Professor Le Patourel and to Mr John Taylor for support and
encouragement over a number of years, and to Mrs Mortimer, Mrs
W B.. Stephens <and Mrs P: S. Kirby for their patience: and
meticulous guidance.

The College of St Paul and St Mary G.D.B.
Cheltenham

July 1983

The publication of this volume has
been assisted by grants from the following:

GAN. AXLES LIMITED
(Heavy Division, Kirkstall)

TWENTY-SEVEN FOUNDATION
(University of London)

YORKSHIRE BANK
YORKSHIRE EVENING POST
YORKSHIRE, TELEVISION

Help with publicity has been generously
provided by

LEEDS & HOLBECK BUILDING SOCIETY

To these bodies The Thoresby Society

expresses its warm appreciation.

Account 1539-40

‘Charters,
Allerton’

Calverley Charters

Canivez

CB
CER
GEP

CPR
Dodsworth
Dugdale, MA

BHR
EYG

Mem. Fountains

ABBREVIATIONS

PRO, S.C.6/Henry VIII/4590, Account 1539-
40

‘Charters relating to the Possessions of Kirkstall
Abbey~in Allerton’, ed’ F. R. Kitson and
others, PTh.S, IV (1895), 42-59 and 81-116

The Calverley Charters presented to the British
Museum by Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan,
baronet, transcribed by S. Margerison and
edited by W. P. Baildon and S. Margerison
(PTS, 1) 1004)

Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cister-
ciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786, ed. J. M.
Canivez, Bibliothéque de la Revue d’Histoire
Ecclesiastique, 8 vols (Louvain, 1933-41)

The Coucher Book of the Cistercian Abbey of

korksiall,. cd. W. 1. Lancaster and W. P.
Baildon (PTh.S, VIII, 1904)

Calendar of Close Rolls

Calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and
Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII

Calendar of Patent Rolls

Bodleian Library, Dodsworth MSS

W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed.
J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel, 6 vols in 8
(1817-46)

English Historical Review

Early Yorkshire Charters, vols I-III, ed.
W. Farrer (1914-16); vols IV—XI, ed. C. T.

Clay (1935-55), Yorkshire Archaeological Society,
Record Series, Extra Series

Memorials of the Abbey of St Mary of Fountains,
Caio Walbram, |; Kame and |. i. Fowler,
So, ell 1863); DX Vil (5878), CX XX (1918)

X11
Fundacio

Hope and Bilson

Knowles, MO
Knowles, RO

PRO
PTS

Reg. Bowet and
Kempe

Reg. Corbridge

Reg. Giffard

Reg. Gray

Reg. Greenfield

Reg. Romeyn

a)
VG

ABBREVIATIONS

‘The Foundation of Kirkstall Abbey’, ed. E. K.
Clark, PTh.S, IV (1895), 169-208

W. H. St J. Hope and J. Bilson, Architectural
Description of Kirkstall Abbey, (PTh.S, XVI,
1907)

D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England,
2nd edn (Cambridge, 1966)

D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England,
3 vols (Cambridge, 1950-71)

Public Record Office
Publications of the Thoresby Society

Documents relating to Diocesan and Provincial
Visitations from the Registers of Henry Bowet, Lord
Archbishop of York, 1407-23, and John Kempe,
Lord Archbishop of York, 1425-52, SS, CXXVII
(1916)

The Register of Thomas of Corbridge, Lord
Archbishop of York, 1300-04, ed. W. Brown, SS,
CXXXVIII (1925)

The Register of Walter Giffard, Lord Archbishop of
York, 1266-79, ed. W. Brown, SS, CIX (1904)

The Register, or Rolls, of Walter Gray, Lord
Archbishop of York, ed. James Raine, jun., SS,
LVI 372)

The Register of William Greenfield, Lord
Archbishop of York, 1306-15, transcribed and
annotated by W. Brown, ed. A. Hamilton
Thompson, 1, SS,.CXLV (roa1); WSs:
CALIX (1934) SS; “CEI (reg6)e Vy ess.
CLII (1938); V, SS, CLIT (1940)

The Register of John le Romeyn [Romanus], Lord
Archbishop of York, 1286-96, ed. W. Brown, I,
55, CXXIIT (7913); Wy SS EX X VIN (1687)

Surtees Society

Victoria County History

Cistercian Expansion and the
Foundation of Kirkstall Abbey

In the early twelfth century the north of England provided a
promising field of growth for Cistercian monasticism. In the
eleventh century the north had suffered from the invasions of the
northmen and from the ‘harrying of the north’ of the Conqueror’s
reign, but by the turn of the century it was beginning to recover.
Under Archbishop Thomas of Bayeux, the first Norman
archbishop of York, the great Benedictine houses had appeared —
Selby (c.1070),' Whitby (c.1095) and the small cells derived from
it, from one of which, at Lastingham, grew the great abbey of St
Mary at York. The cathedral priory at Durham was established in
1082-83, with its own family on the ancient sites of Lindisfarne,
Jarrow and Monkwearmouth. Numerous alien priories were
founded, of which two — Holy Trinity, York (1089) and Burstall
in Holderness (1115) — were to have some significance in the
history of Kirkstall.

The second half of the eleventh century had been a period of
church reform, when successive popes had tried to exclude lay
influence from the church and to emphasise papal supremacy.
Reform was again taking place in the Benedictine order, and new
orders had been founded which sought a return to the simplicity of
early monasticism and, in accordance with reforming ideas, the
reduction of lay influence. They were supported by, and provided
support for, the papacy. In the early years of the twelfth century
the new orders began to arrive in England. The Austin Canons
came to, Wexham in 1113, to Bridlington in the same year, to
Nostell soon afterwards and to Guisborough in 1119. Embsay
Priory, later to move to Bolton-in-Wharfedale, was founded in
1121-22. The Cistercians came to England with the foundation of
Waverley in 1128.

A major revival of learning was in progress. In the north of
England the school at York, which dates from the earliest days of
Christianity in England, had been refounded by Archbishop
Thomas of Bayeux. There ‘a decent education could no doubt be

‘All dates of monastic foundations in this chapter are taken from D. Knowles and
R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses (1953).

2 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

obtained’.* Schools also existed at Beverley and Pontefract.’ This
was also a time of growing trade. York itself enjoyed the highly
valued privilege of being quit of toll not only in England, but also
in the king’s overseas possessions,* and German merchants are
known to have been in York in the early years of the twelfth
century.’ Finally, in Archbishop Thurstan of York, northern
England had a religious leader “who might be expected to welcome
the new monasticism and to give his somewhat impulsive
enthusiasm free reign in patronising its expansion’.®

The year 1132 saw the foundation of Rievaulx and Fountains: the
former, a daughter-house of Clairvaux, in whose welfare St
Bernard himself showed a deep concern, became a centre of
sanctity under Ailred, most famous of English Cistercian abbots;
the latter began in circumstances of the utmost. poverty as a
secession of monks from the wealthy Benedictine abbey of St Mary
at York,’

The two Cistercian abbeys soon began to found daughter-houses
of their own: Rievaulx at Warden in Bedfordshire (1135), Revesby
in Lincolnshire (1142), when Ailred himself led the colonising
monks, and at Rufford in Nottinghamshire (1146). Equally
prolific, Fountains sent out new communities in 1139 to
Haverholm and Kirkstead in Lincolnshire and Newminster in
Northumberland. Her last foundations took place in 1147 when
parties of monks left the mother-house for Bytham in Lincolnshire
and for the Yorkshire village of Barnoldswick. Newminster herself
later colonised Roche (1147) and Sawley (1148).

Following a decision of the general chapter in 1147, Savignac
houses were absorbed into the Cistercian order.* This added three
new houses to the groups of northern Cistercian monasteries —
Furness, and its daughter-houses, Swineshead (Lincolnshire) and
Byland (Yorkshire).

Holme Cultram, Cumberland, was founded from Rievaulx’s
daughter-house at Melrose in 1150 and in the same year Byland
sent a community to Fors, which moved to Jervaulx in 1156. In
1152 the Cistercian general chapter forbade further foundations,
but the decree does not seem to have been effective in England until

°A. L. Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1955), p.233.
3A. F. Leach, Schools of Medieval England (1915), pp.114-15.

“Poole, p: 75:

‘Tbid.

°D. Knowles, MO, p.230.

7Ibid., but see also D. Nicholl, Thurstan, Archbishop of York, 1114-40 (York, 1964).
*Knowles, MO, p.251.

CISTERCIAN EXPANSION 3

after 1153, the year in which Poulton in Cheshire (Dieulacres from
1214) was founded from the former Savignac house of Comber-
mere. This foundation marks the end of the great period of
Cistercian expansion in northern England.

Such vitality would have been remarkable at any time. What
seems to have attracted less attention than it deserves is the fact that
this period of expansion coincided almost exactly with a period of
intense unrest, associated, as far as the north of England was
concerned, with three closely linked factors — the ‘anarchy’ of
Stephen’s reign, the ambitions, in Lancashire and Lincolnshire
especially, of Ranulf, earl of Chester, and the presence at the same
time of a powerful and unscrupulous ruler on the Scottish throne in
the person of David I. To the Cistercian struggle with nature, to
which they were accustomed, was therefore added the danger to
life and property from prolonged and often bitter warfare, a danger
of which at least two houses, Newminster and Calder, and possibly
others, had direct experience.

The year 1153, in which the general chapter’s order forbidding
further foundations took effect in England, also marks in other
ways the end of this era. In this year was signed the treaty between
Stephen and Henry of Anjou which ended the years of ‘anarchy’;
David I died and was succeeded by the much less compelling figure
of Malcolm IV, and William FitzDuncan probably died in the same
year. FitzDuncan, nephew of David I, who had interests in Craven
through his marriage, had fought against Ilbert de Lacy in the
Battle of the Standard and perhaps had a personal feud with the de
Lacy family. He had led a raid by Scottish troops as far south as
Clitheroe.?

Of the effects of these disorders on Cistercian expansion in
northern England little definite can be said, except that expansion
was clearly not held up. It does seem possible, however, that these
disorders had some influence on the territorial direction taken by
this expansion. It is noticeable that no new foundations took place
in Yorkshire for eight years after the terrible experiences of 1138-39
when the Scots and their allies penetrated southwards on both sides
of the Pennines, when the monasteries of Newmiunster and Calder
were destroyed and the most ruthless atrocities were perpetrated. '°
The scarcity of religious houses in Lancashire may be explained by
the instability of political conditions there during most of this
period of rapid expansion by the new orders. Constant danger and

*Poole, p.271 and n.
'° Ibid., pp.270-71.

4 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

occasional interference must have added to the difficulties which
most northern Cistercian houses experienced in their early years,
but that they survived at all shows that civilian life and progress
were not altogether suspended in the days of anarchy and that only
a few districts in England were seriously affected.

It has been argued that the Cistercian order was strongly
supported by the barons in this period because the Cistercians, as an
order which had grown out of the reform movement of the
previous century, had close connections with the Holy See and
therefore ‘implicitly supported the barons in their opposition to
royal authority’.'' The numerous white monk houses of the north
and west were seen as ‘the strongholds of the semi-autonomous
barons of Stephen’s reign’! and as the expression of baronial
opposition to Stephen. If this was so it is not surprising that serious
political disorder and Cistercian expansion came to an end
together.

The Community at Barnoldswick

Kirkstall Abbey was founded 1n 1147, a year which marks the peak
of the period of Cistercian expansion described above.'} The basis
of any account of its foundation must be the Fundacio Abbathie de
Kyrkestall, written perhaps by Hugh, a monk of Kirkstall, in the
early thirteenth century.'* Henry de Lacy, in penitence to God
during an illness, gave land at Barnoldswick to the abbot of
Fountains to found a new abbey of the Cistercian order. The land
was held by Henry of Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk, for an annual
payment of five marks and a yearling hawk, but the rent had been
long in arrears.

The land probably included Barnoldswick and the vills adjacent
—Brogden, Coates (the ‘Elfwynetrop’ of the Fundacio), and
Salterforth. There was a parish church at Barnoldswick, ‘very
ancient and founded long before’, with dependent chapels at
Bracewell and East Marton,'’ but these villages were probably not
included in Henry de Lacy’s donation.

''B. D. Hill, English Cistercian Monasteries and their Patrons in the Twelfth Century
(Urbana, 1968), p.38.

Ibid.

'’The year 1147 saw the foundation of Dore, Vaudey, Bittlesden, Roche, Sawtry
and Margam as well as Kirkstall.

‘4 The printed version in PTh.S, 1V, comprises a complete transcript and translation.

'’ The Norman work at both Bracewell and East Marton may well be the remains of
these early buildings.

CISTERCIAN EXPANSION 5

The abbot of Fountains sent Alexander, his prior (and one of the
thirteen monks who had left St Mary’s, York, to found Fountains),
with twelve monks and ten lay-brothers to found the new house,
which like several other Cistercian houses was given the name
Mount St Mary.

When the monks took possession of the site the inhabitants of the
vills were removed. This action was by no means unique in
Cistercian foundations but was perhaps more thorough at
Barnoldswick, for when the people came back regularly to worship
at their church they were seen as a nuisance ‘to the monastery and
to the brethren there residing’ and, in spite of their protests, the
church was pulled down ‘to its foundations’. For this the rector
charged the monks before the archbishop, the Cistercian Henry
Murdac, and appeal was made to the pope, also a Cistercian, but
without success.

The monks’ stay at Barnoldswick was neither long nor happy.
They complained of interference by ‘freebooters’ and when a
particularly wet season ruined their crops they began to consider
the possibility of a change of site, again a not uncommon
occurrence among Cistercian houses.

The Fundacio gives these two reasons for the monks’ decision to
seek a new site, and they may well have been true. Their land was
precariously situated considering the disorders of the time. At the
north-east end, at Bracewell and Marton, it adjoined the honour of
Skipton, held by William FitzDuncan the Scot, and confirmed to
him by King David in 1151.'° FitzDuncan and the de Lacys had
fought on opposite sides in the Battle of the Standard and it has
been suggested that there was a personal feud between them.'” It is
not impossible therefore that the freebooters were Scots, but it
would be surprising if lawlessness did not flourish generally in the
conditions of the time.

The dampness of the climate may well have been an added reason
for moving. The experience of the monks at Fors and Sawley, only
about five miles from Barnoldswick and almost exactly contem-
porary, was similar.'* A modern historian of climatic changes has
concluded that the winter of 1148-49 was particularly severe and
that that of 1151-52 was notable for wet periods.'®

EMG, Vilxito

# Poole; pp.270-72; 271n.

VG Yoreswire, Ul,ed. W. Page (1013), pp-140, 156.

"°C. E. Britton, A Meteorological Chronology to 1450, Meteorological Office,
Geophysical Memoirs, 70 (1937), 62-63.

6 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

But even if we accept the reasons given by the monks for their
move they do not tell the whole story. There can be little doubt
that the intrusion of the Cistercians imto this: border: areacot
Lancashire and Yorkshire was bitterly resented by <the local
inhabitants. As’ we. have seen, the evicted, villacers. of
Barnoldswick returned regularly to their church to worship and
carried their complaint about its destruction to the papacy itself.
At Accrington, under Abbot Lambert, the grange was burnt and
three of the lay-brothers murdered,*° following the eviction of
the inhabitants. At Cliviger Richard of Eland, lord of the manor
of Rochdale, proceeded successfully against the monks for their
occupation of land which had been the gift of Robert de Lacy.?!
The editor of the Coucher Book has remarked with apparent
surprise’? that no. further grants of land to the-camonke tat
Barnoldswick have been traced. It could well be, in these
circumstances, that no other land “was ‘granted to them there.
Perhaps, therefore, the abbot’s decision to seek a new site was a
wise one.

It has been argued*} that the foundation gifts of Cistercian
monasteries were usually of this somewhat ungenerous kind; that
patrons founded Cistercian houses in their own interest and at
minimal cost to themselves; and examples can be shown from
many Midlands houses of meagre donations of unproductive
land... Set sagainst many ofthese, Henry de. Lacy’s:. gramt at
Barnoldswick was not ungenerous, at least in extent. ‘The
seemingly generous donations were often, if not always, land
which the founder valued least among his possessions, and often

land labouring under some kind of legal disability which
would severely tax the resources of an obscure and struggling
monastery.’*4 The latter was true of Barnoldswick. Its tenure
was by no means secure, for de Lacy held it of Hugh Bigod, earl
of Norfolk, by a rent which had been long in arrears and for
which the earl later tried to evict the community.” In defence of
de Lacy it has been argued’? that if his grants to religious houses
were not generous it was ‘probably because he had the task of

° Fundacio, p.184.

*" Ibid.

“CB, pp.X-XI.

3 Hill, pp.48-53.

*4 Ibid.

*s Fundacio, p.180.

*°W. E. Wightman, The Lacy Family in England and Normandy, 1066-1194
(Oxford, 1966), p.42.

CISTERCIAN EXPANSION iy)

building up the honour once again after the disasters of Stephen’s
reign and had to sort out the complications left from the period of his
father’s banishment’.
Abbot Alexander is said to have discovered the present site at
Kirkstall when out on the business of his house. It was occupied by
hermits,*? but by persuading some of the hermits of the dangers of
their way of life, by offering others gifts of money, and through the
influence of Henry de Lacy with William de Peitevin, who held the
land of him, the monks gained possession. The date 19 May 1152, the
anniversary of their departure from Fountains in 1147, was chosen as
the formal date of the removal to the new site.
It is possible to gain some idea of the topography of the new site
from an estate map made in 1711 for the earl of Cardigan.** This is
clearly along time after the monks moved there, butit still gives some
idea of the district before it was over-run by the expansion of Leeds.
Any idea of being ‘remote from the habitation of men’ would now
seem to bea wholly inappropriate description of the Kirkstall site, but
there must have been some seclusion therein the mid-twelfth century.
The site was bounded on the south side by the river Aire and backed on
the west by the great wood of Hawksworth, now almost entirely
replaced by a large housing estate, but, even at the end of the abbey’s
history, still estimated at 800 acres’? and its clearance only just
beginning. About a mile and a half south-eastward was the small
settlement of Burley, grouped around Burley Green, still an open
space immediately west of the present Burley Recreation Ground.
About the same distance east of the site lay East Headingley, the
outline of its green perhaps still marked by North Lane and St
Michael’s Lane. Again at about the same distance north of the site lay
West Headingley, the distinction between the two Headingleys made
by the charters of the early endowments? still clearly visible on the
eighteenth-century estate map. The river could be crossed by the ford
at Horsforth, near the present Newlay Bridge, at the western end of
Hawksworth Wood.?!
With the Fundacio account of the moving of the community to
Kirkstall and the foundation of the abbey there should be read Henry
de Lacy’s charter3* confirming his own and other early grants to the
77It is ‘not beyond the bounds of possibility’ that a building found under the
infirmary during the excavations of 1964 ‘was erected not by the monks but by the
so-called hermits’. Kirkstall Abbey Excavations, 1960-64 (PTh.S, LI, 1967), p.36.

*® Northamptonshire Record Office, Brudenell Map 41.

79 Account 1539-40.

Ese ODP S57.

31 CB, p.63, dating from Abbot Alexander’s lifetime.

2 CB. p50.

8 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

abbey. In spite of the reservations of the editor of the Coucher Book®}
there seems to be sufficient reason for regarding this as the foundation
charter. It was placed first in the book by the original compiler only a
little more than halfa century after the gifts which it records; since the
charter is in the form of a writ and records events which were in the
past at the time of writing, the objection that it 1s ‘little if anything
more than a confirmation’ 1s invalid. This is just what would be
expected ofa foundation charter in this form.*4 As was customary, the
charter concludes with suitably solemn words, ‘I moreover pray and
command all my men that they love, honour and support this place
and its inhabitants and all its appurtenances’. The list of witnesses
includes twenty-five of Henry’s tenants or followers, so that the
words ‘command all my men’ would have great significance in this
context. The only other witness was Henry, archbishop of York, and
this enables the charter to be fairly closely dated, for Henry Murdac
died on 14 October 1153.

Galbraith has argued?° that the foundation of a monastery took a
long time?’ and that only after perhaps further grants beyond the
initial endowment had been made and the church, or part of it, was
ready for dedication would the intention of the founder be felt to have
been fully realised. Then only would the ‘whole complicated process
of foundation be recorded in writing, perhaps at the dedication of the
church’.3* The presence of the archbishop and of Henry de Lacy and
so many of his men makes one wonder whether the charter under
consideration was not issued on just such an occasion.

The dating of these events in the Fundacio can now be examined.
The relevant passages are as follows:

.. . in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord one thousand, one
hundred and forty-seven, there was ordained abbot of the same
place the venerable man the lord Alexander, prior of Fountains,

se Gilby aera

34See V. H. Galbraith, ‘Monastic Foundation Charters of the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries’, Cambridge Historical Journal, IV (1934), 205-22.

3’The charter of confirmation by Robert de Lacy ends with similar words (CB,
p.51), and that by Roger with similar but even more high-sounding and emphatic
words (CB, p. 54).

s@ Galbraith, p. 214:

7The foundations of a building which may possibly have provided temporary
quarters for the monks who lived on the site while permanent buildings were
being erected were discovered under the infirmary during the excavations of 1964,
Kirkstall Abbey Excavations, 1960-64, p.36.

38 William, earl of Albemarle, confirmed to the monks of Aumale ‘all the donations
which my predecessors faithfully made to the said church from the beginning of its
construction’ [my italics], EYC, Ill, 35.

CISTERCIAN EXPANSION 9

who on this very day, namely May 18, was despatched from the
abbey of Fountains with twelve monks and ten lay brothers to the
mew apbey.. 7

. . . For six years and more they remained there in unbroken
40
poverty i. ;

a. gla the year of our Loxd’s Incarmation,1152, Kine Stephen
reigning over England, archbishop Roger presiding over the see
of York, on May 19th. . . came the convent of monks from their
first seat . . . to the place which is now called Kirkstall.’

An examination of the charter above has suggested that the
process of foundation was complete before the death of Henry
Murdac in October 1153. The reference to Archbishop Roger,
therefore, is clearly in error. With that exception it does not seem
necessary to amend the Fundacio account. Stephen was king until
October 1154. The terminus ad quem is the death of Henry Murdac.
Six years could have elapsed between the departure from Fountains
in 1147 and the dedication of the church, which perhaps marked the
completion of the process of foundation.

We tecessary acceptance of an early date for Henry de Lacy s
charter makes it probable that negotiations leading to the further
grants of land included in it were going on while the community
was still at Barnoldswick. This would be in agreement with the
Fundacio account, which records the negotiations with William de
Peiteyin for the site and even the building of the church and
‘humble offices’ before it records the move from Barnoldswick.”

The coincidence of the date of the two migrations, from
Fountains and from Barnoldswick, will have been noted. If the
move to Kirkstall took a long time and if the monks wanted to
choose a date on which formally to commemorate it, what date
would be more suitable than the anniversary of the first foundation
of their house?

The land which the monks occupied at Kirkstall was granted to
them by William de Peitevin, who held it of Henry de Lacy at
Headingley.*3 The Fundacio account is careful to point out* that the
grant was made at Henry’s suggestion and even persuasion. The
writer seems anxious to stress Henry’s services to the monks,

39 Fundacio, p.174.

4° Fundacio, p.176.

4! Fundacio, p.179.

* Fyundacio, pp.178-79.

43 The land was held by William of Robert de Peitevin. The relationship is precisely
expressed in Robert’s confirmation of the grant by ‘Dominus meus Henricus de
Laci’ and ‘Willelmus Pictavensis miles meus’. CB, p.56.

44 Fundacio, p.178.

IO KIRKSTALL ABBEY

which in the matter of territorial endowment at least were less
significant than the account suggests, so that William’s share in
the transaction may have been somewhat greater than is shown
in the Fundacio. This impression 1s strengthened by the fact that
while it was usual for a monastery to base its seal on its
Founder’s coat of arms, Kirkstall’s seal was based on the arms of
Wilhami de Peitevin,*

The monks did not experience the same hostility at Kirkstall as
they had found at Barnoldswick. Endowments flowed in quickly
once the move had been completed; probably, as has been seen,
they had begun even before the move. It may have been the
promise of such endowments that had finally persuaded them to
move.

In every part of the de Lacy fee where the abbey’s estates were
eventually located the establishment of the abbey’s territorial
endowment was initiated by Henry de Lacy’s immediate tenants.
His appeal at the dedication of the church had not been in vain.
Even if the writer of the Fundacio is guilty of some exaggeration
in his mention of Henry’s own gifts it is nevertheless likely that
many of the gifts made by his tenants were made at Henry’s
suggestion and that the abbey owed its greater security in some
measure to his closer proximity.

The Fundacio lists the areas in which land was acquired under
the first abbot, 1147-82.4° All such grants after the move to
Kirkstall can be confitmed “by ‘clarter evidence.” Farct
Barnoldswyck with Elfwynthrop and Brogden with its
appurtenances. In Cliviger one carucate of land with its
appurtenances*’ and pastures for horses and herds very plentiful.
Oldfield,#® Cookridge,4® Brearey,*° Horsforth,*' Allerton,>?
Roundhay,*} Thorpe,*4 a messuage in York,*°’ Hooton*® and

5°A Rent-Roll of Kirkstall Abbey’, ed. J: Stansfeld, PIS, WM (2800), 17. The
seal is illustrated in plate I, fig.1, facing p.17.

4° Fundacio, p.18T.

ER. (003.

CB, p. 179:

*°The monks already held land in Cookridge when land was granted to them by
Wilham Payne! im 1172, EYC, V1, 240.

CB. p.82:

‘'CB, p.71, no.xciv, is pre-1172, but there were several early grants in Horsforth.

*The early grant by Samson de Allerton was confirmed in Henry de Lacy’s
foundation charter, CB, p.51.

‘Confirmed m2 charter by Henry I, CB, p.214-

‘4 Bishopthorpe, York, also confirmed by Henry II, CB, p.214.

bid. CB, paLas:

*°The renunciation of the land by Abbot Elias is recorded in CB, p.9.

CISTERCIAN EXPANSION i

Bessacar’”? with two granges neighbouring to the abbey.’** Early
granges are known in all these places except Thorpe and York.

Construction of the church was almost certainly begun while the
monks were still at Barnoldswick. The buildings surrounding the
cloister were also begun early and their construction was complete
by the end of the abbacy of Alexander. The architects who have
examined the abbey ruins find no reason to doubt the statement of
the Fundacde that the church and either dormitory. . -either
refectory, the cloister and the chapter and other offices necessary
within the abbey’ were built during this period.*® Following early
Cistercian practice the monks’ refectory was originally built lying
east-west and not north-south, as it at present appears. The original
arrangement of the windows and doorways can still be seen.© The
lay-brothers’ refectory was situated at the southern end of the
cellarium, adjoining the kitchen.”

According to the Fundacio™® the buildings were partly provided
by Henry de Lacy, who laid ‘with his own hand the foundations of
the church and himself completed the whole fabric at his own cost’.
The Latin makes clear, which the editor’s translation does not, that
the reference is to the whole of the church and not to the whole of
the monastery.°} In completing the latter the abbey ran heavily into
debt, for when Aaron, the Jew of Lincoln, died in 1186, Kirkstall,
together with eight other Cistercian abbeys, owed him 6,400
marks.“

The death of the first abbot in 1182 provides a convenient point
at which to summarise the early progress of the abbey. The
community had survived the five difficult years at Barnoldswick
and had secured a settlement on a new and distant site. The most
important of its buildings, much of which remains to this day, had
been erected in a most worthy manner, the foundations of its
territorial endowment had been laid and the all-important grange
system developed. By 1182 the abbey had gained a firm foothold in
all the areas where its great estates were later to be developed.

‘7 Dodsworth, VIII, f.74, printed in CB, p.156, n.3, and confirmed by Henry I], see
Dugdale, MA, V, 535.

*’Probably New Grange, the site of which is now Beckett Park, and Bar Grange,
near the river at Burley.

°° Fundacio, p.181. Fora full description of the abbey buildings, see Hope and Bilson.

°° Hope and Bilson, p.52.

* [bid ps:

° Fundacio, p.180.

°3°Totam Ecclesie fabricam . . . consummavit’, Fundacio, p.180.

°4J. Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England (1893), p.108.

2)
The Abbey’s Lands and Benefactors

It was essential for the survival of a monastery that an adequate
endowment in land should be built up and satisfactorily exploited.
This was especially important for the Cistercians as they had, by
the terms of their foundation, denied themselves sources of income
which the Benedictines, for example, had been ready to accept.
Undoubtedly the main reason why the Kirkstall community had
decided to move from Barnoldswick was its failure significantly to
increase its original endowment in that area and, because of poor
weather and outside interference, its inability fully to exploit it.
The basic reason for its greater success at Kirkstall must be the
rapid growth of an adequate territorial endowment, no doubt made
possible by the closer’ proximity “ef the -de Lacys-<andiwthe
encouragement which they clearly gave to their tenants to support
the new foundation. On the de Lacy lands in the Leeds area almost
all the immediate sub-tenants became benefactors of the abbey.

It will be the purpose of this chapter briefly to review the growth
and location of that territorial endowment and the most important
contributors to 1t and then to look, in more detail, at some
important implications for the community of land tenure during
the period. The exploitation of that land will be the concern of a
later chapter. Owing to the varied and often imprecise formulae
used in the documents to describe grants of land no attempt can be
made to assess the total extent of the endowment.

Barnoldswick

The land at Barnoldswick is of particular interest, not only as the
site on which the abbey was founded, but also as an example of one
of the rare occasions when an area of monastic land can be marked
on a map with some degree of precision. Following a dispute with
Hugh Bigod about the Barnoldswick land Henry de Lacy
petitioned Henry II for confirmation of his grant to the monks and
in the document’ defined the boundaries between the monks’ land
and his forest of Blackburnshire. The study of West Riding
place-names by A. H. Smith’ and the work of W. Farrer} enable the
landmarks provided in the description to be identified with some

“CB, p.189.

7A. H. Smith, The Place-names of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Publications of the
English Place-name Society, XXX-XXXVII (Cambridge, 1961-63).

SBYC, |. so7n.

THE ABBEY S$ LANDS AND BENEFACTORS 13

confidence. On the north side the monks’ land marched, not with
Henry de Lacy’s forest, but with lands of the honour of Skipton.
The boundaries of the original grant were thus described:

... per rivum qui vocatur Blakebroc, et ita sursum ultra moram
in directum usque ad Gailmers et ita in directum usque capud de
Clessaghe, et in transversum montem qui vocatur Blacho et ita
usque ad Oxegile, et ita per Oxgile sursum usque ad Pikedelawe

ul vocatur Alainesete et de Pikedelawe usque ad antiquum
eae inter Midhop et Colredene.*

When he re-granted the land, Hugh Bigod referred to

Totam terram de Bernolfwic cum Elfwinetrop et omnibus altis
appendiciis suis.°

A. H. Smith regards Elfwinetrop as possibly the early name for
the part of Barnoldswick which became known as Coates,° a
secondary settlement slightly to the north-east of the town. All the
other names mentioned above Smith regards as field-names in the
townships of Barnoldswick and Brogden. Some of these can be
identified. Blakebroc may be the stream known as the County
Brook, about three miles south of Barnoldswick on the county
boundary. The hill of Blacho, now Blacko, 1s easily found; Midhop
has become Middop and Colredene may be the modern Coverdale.
Farrer identified Oxgill with the valley which runs northward
between Weethead (Wheathead) and Burn Moor, now followed by
part of the county boundary, and Pikedelawe, or Alainsete, with
tie tnieh hill (1,253 feet) at the morthern end of that-valley.7 The
boundary on the north side would be that between Bracewell to the
north of it and Brogden and Barnoldswick to the south.

An attempt can now be made to define the area covered by
Henry de Lacy’s grant. The boundary should run north and east of
Coates and must link the places referred to in Henry’s description.
The resulting area is shown on the map (p.14) where parish and
township boundaries have been used to link the points identified. *

Very early in the abbey’s history the parish of Barnoldswick,
which had included the ‘four parochial vills’ of Brogden, Brace-
well, Elfwinetrop and the two Martons, was divided.’ Bracewell
[OD pp: 189-90.
7B, p. 188:
°Smith, Place-names of the West Riding, XX XV (1961), 35-36.

TLE YVCol,. SO7n.

’For a different view see R. A. Donkin, ‘Settlement and Depopulation on Cistercian
Estates during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Bulletin of the Institute of
Historical Research, XX XIII (1960), 141-65.

°Zouche Chapel MS (Dean and Chapter of York), P 1 (2) 1, printed in EYC, III,
164-66.

I4 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

YY ‘Thornton
-in-Craven

R h/

yA
Y fKelbrook

Height in feet

miles

eee ce ee 0 eee Boundary of original endowment Reservoirs

The Abbey’s Endowments at Barnoldswick

THE ABBEY ’S LANDS AND BENEFACTORS 14

and the two Martons became separate parishes, Kirkstall retaining
the right of presentation to the two livings. The award was made
by Archbishop Henry Murdac, who died in 1153. Since the monks
are rererred to throughout this rather long document -as ‘of
Kirkstall’ it seems likely that the date 1152-53 should be given for
the division of the parish.

Grants of Land, 1152-1260

In the area around Leeds, where the estates of the abbey were to be
mainly located, the greatest landholder among the tenants-in-chief
was the abbey’s founder, Henry de Lacy. Once settled in Kirkstall
the first abbot, with Henry’s support, was very successful in
attracting donations to his house, and in a number of families
support of the abbey continued through several generations.

Although Henry II’s charter of confirmation’® refers to ‘that
place of Kirkstall which they have by the gift of Henry de Lacy’ the
abbey site was in fact in William de Peitevin’s fee, and the writer of
the Fundacio describes the position more precisely when he writes
that William ‘at the instance of Henry’" conferred the land on the
monks. The same charter includes Henry de Lacy’s own grant of
cow-pasture known as Brackenley where Roundhay grange was
later established. William de Peitevin added half a carucate in East
and four carucates in West Headingley, perhaps the land which
became New Grange and Moor Grange.

The link with the de Peitevin family continued until the
fourteenth century when, in 1324, Thomas died without heirs and
the whole of the manor of Headingley was granted to the abbey, '”
which held it until the Dissolution.

Another family whose members had a long association with the
abbey was that of Samson de Allerton. Samson’s grant of land in
Allerton, probably the district now known as Chapel Allerton, was
among those confirmed by Henry de Lacy. Further grants were
made until, early in the next century, ‘all Allerton’ was conveyed to
the abbey by Adam, Samson’s grandson. A grange was established
there at an early date.'} Meanwood was granted to the abbey about
1280 by William, son of Alexander, a tenant of the de Allerton
family; Moor Allerton was granted about 1280 and there were later

2CB Ap.204.

'' Fundacio, p.178.

Calverley Charters, p.161. This account very much simplifies a long and complex
story, ibid., pp.184, 196, 212. For the long court case by which Alexander de
Peitevin tried unsuccessfully to recover the land, see CB, pp.304—10.

TGR Pp. 51, LOO; 105,

16 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

grants in Lofthouse, Potternewton' and in Allerton Gledhow
during the fourteenth century. It 1s in Allerton that the abbey’s
holdings seem to have become most closely linked with tenants at
all levels and where benefactions 1n any number continued longest.

Henry de Lacy’s tenant in Bramley was William de Reinville
who was one of his most important barons. His son, Adam, was
seneschal at Pontefract while Henry was away on the crusade on
which he lost his life, and served both Henry’s son and grandson.’
William’s son, another William, added a piece of land which
appears to have stretched along the south bank of the Aire opposite
the abbey site from where Newlay Bridge now stands eastward to
the point where a road from Armley reached the river.'° The real
expansion of the abbey’s estates in Bramley took place during the
first half of the next century through gifts by later members of the
de Reinville family’? and by the de Stapletons, their relations by
marriage.'* To solve his financial problems Robert de Stapleton
eventually sold his holding to the abbey’? so that the abbey then
held all Bramley and Armley. This is one of only two cases of the
purchase of land by the abbey which have been noted.*°

Land in Seacroft was held by William Somerville, another of de
Lacy’s more notable tenants. His family had held land of Ilbert de
Lacy when the Domesday Survey was made; they had links with
the Scottish royal family, and William and his son were frequently
among the witnesses to charters of David of Scotland. Soon after
1166 began the series of charters which conveyed nearly 100 acres
of land to the abbey.”' His son added valuable mineral rights. *?

De Lacy’s other tenant in Seacroft was Henry Wallis, whose
family, like that of William de Reinville, held office in de Lacy’s
household,*?} but his grants were less extensive than those of the
Somervilles.*4

Land was granted in Shadwell by yet another of de Lacy’s
knights, Herbert de Arches, and by his brother, mother-in-law and
brother, Richard.?5

“Chatters, Allerton’, pp.40, 52, 47.
‘Wightman, The Lacy Family, pp.103-05.
~CB, p.62 and n.

ED. Pp 250, 257, 250. 200.

'SCB, p.261; Bodleian Library, MS Top., Yorkshire e.2 (Watson MSS), f.50.
CD, pp,203, 204.

“See also Charters, Allerton’, p:58.
“CB, pp. 121-26:

2 Dodsworth, VIII, f.58.

2 EYC, Ill, 233.

FOB. pp: $i) bLO=21.

CBP p.133=35.

THE ABBEY ’S LANDS AND BENEFACTORS Ly

All this land in Roundhay, Seacroft and Shadwell was lost to the
abbey in 1281 in return for an annual payment, in a settlement
made by the earl of Lincoln which was intended to help the abbey
out of serious financial difficulties.”°

Expansion southwards was effectively sealed off by the lands of
Temple Newsam. Grants to the abbey of land in Austhorpe and
Osmondthorpe*’? made the Templars close neighbours.

The monks received a number of small and scattered grants of
land to the south-west of their main areas of endowment, near
Morley and towards Bradford. There were grants in Morley and
Beeston by the de Beeston family?® in the twelfth and mid-
thirteenth centuries, in Pudsey and Calverley”? and in Bolling and
Newhall, where the abbey had a sheepfold.3°

Henry de Lacy’s caput honoris was at Pontefract and in that area
also and in spite of the proximity of other religious houses at
Pontefract, Nostell and Monk Bretton, his tenants granted land to
the abbey. Roger de Ledeston and Emma de Toulouse gave land in
the fields of Pontefract itself; Hugh de Snydale, son of de Lacy’s
tenant of 1166 granted three and a half acres, and William
Fitzgerald, who held one-third of a knight’s fee in 1166, gave three
acres.3' Hugh de Toulston gave land between Ackton and Snydale
and later one carucate in Loscoe, with access to the grange which
had been established at Snydale.?* The largest grant in Snydale was,
however, made by Roger de Lacy, who, in confirming the grant of
a house by his father, added three carucates of land, or half the
Domesday assessment.33 The de Stapleton family, who granted
land in Bramley, also made grants in their own village of Stapleton,
and Alan de Smeaton gave four acres at Smeaton: **

The most distant of the abbey’s possessions were those in the de
Lacy fee near to the Lancashire-Yorkshire border. The earliest,
dating from the time of the first abbot, was at Cliviger,?5 south of
Burnley, where a grange was established. There is some confusion
about the tenure of this land. Abbot Lambert 1s said to have given it
up,?° but the abbey still held land in Cliviger when Henry de Lacy
6 See below, pp.43-44.

Gis pearl Ve. 1 34:

CB, pp.245-46.

“Wusdale, sia, WV. S40, 543)
Cb. pp.073,. 070, 244).

2 CB, ppals2—53..

CB, pp. 148-49, 150:

CB, PAO:

CB, PP-155,,.154.
indaao, p.1s1, contirmed by Robert de Lacy, CB, p.202.
8° Fundacio, p.196.

18 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

helped the abbey out of its financial difficulties in 1287.37 The land at
Cliviger was said to have been given in exchange for the vill of
Accrington, from which the inhabitants had been evicted. They
returned, however, burnt the grange and killed the lay-brothers.3*
With Robert de Lacy’s help peace was restored and the grange was
held until 1287.

Other endowments were centred on Riston, or Rushton, fifteen
miles NNW of Accrington and across the Yorkshire border in the
district of Bowland. The grant was augmented by John de Lacy intwo
stages}? and was held by the monks until the dissolution.

Land at Adel and Acquisitions in the Paynel Fee

Adel was not part of the de Lacy fee, but was held in chief by William
Paynel and had once been part of a great honour which, before
sub-division, had stretched into six counties in the north, midlands
and south-west of England.*° A convenient summary of lands held in
Adel in 1198 is provided by a tithe agreement concluded in that year
between the abbey and the church of Adel.+' Land in Cookridge,
Brearey, and East and West Burdon are all referred to.

The earliest grants were those in Cookridge and Brearey, referred
toin the list oflands acquired under the first abbot, * who died in 1182.
The Cookridge grant was by Paynel himself, but it is clear that the
land was already held by the monks of Adam, one of Paynel’s tenants
and Paynel’s grant included the homage and service of Adam and his
family.*8 Soon afterwards and probably before 1174, Roger Mustel,
whose associations are with Lincolnshire** and whose appearance in
Yorkshire cannot be satisfactorily explained, extended this to the
whole of Cookridge.45 The grant at Brearey was by Robert de
Brearey, and one of the early granges was established there.

The whole of the vill of Adel was granted in 1204 by William
Mustel, Roger’s son,#° and this led to a dispute with Holy Trinity
Priory; York, “to- whom the church had been granted <om atts
re-foundation at the end of the eleventh century. The dispute lasted

7 Fundacio, pp.184—85.

CB, p: 190:

"CBs Pp. 202, 203:

WMEYC, Vi, 56-59:

TIC Bs Pros:

Fundacio, p. 181.

SEYC. Vi; 249:

“*Roger Mustel was a nephew of St Gilbert of Sempringham.

IC Bs p79:

“CB, p.78, confirmed by ithe Luttrells, who had succeeded the Paynels as
tenant-in-chief, CB, p.1o.

THE ABBEY S$ LANDS AND BENEFACTORS I9

until 1237 when the abbey was granted all the lands held in Adel by
the priory.

Henry II’s confirmation charter shows that six bovates of land at
Bishopsthorpe, York, were granted by William Paynel. Roger, the
priest of St Gregory at York, gave one toft outside Micklegate, the
rent of which the abbey was still receiving at the Dissolution. 47

Other Land in the Leeds Area

The abbey’s first foothold in Horsforth came around the year 1180
when land in Horsforth and Keighley which Adam FitzPeter had
granted to Haverholm Priory was demised to Kirkstall.4* Hors-
forth and Rawdon were divided between de Bruce, the Meschins
and the Leathleys. FitzPeter’s land had been part of the Meschin fee.
The larger grants in this area were all to come from the Leathleys.
After a number of small grants, William Leathley conveyed to the
abbey the whole of his land in Horsforth, except for six bovates
which-he had granted to the Templars.*° These were soon
conveyed to Kirkstall by the master of the Temple in England,
making a total endowment of two carucates,*° and the whole was
confirmed by Hugh, son of William Leathley, in a charter which
can be dated about 1220.°%"

The Mauleverers. were tendats in the de Bruce part of .the
Horsforth fee. Robert FitzHubert granted the land on which Dean
Grange was established. Mauleverer’s ‘free man’, Nigel, also
granted land in Horsforth, which was added to by his son and
grandson. °*

The abbey’s considerable endowment in Bramhope began in the
first generation of the settlement at Kirkstall.°3 By the end of the
century almost the whole of Bramhope was shared between
Kirkstall and St Leonard’s Hospital, York.*

Slightly more distant was the important estate at Bardsey and
Collingham. The land, known as Micklethwaite, was one of the
abbey’s earliest acquisitions, and a grange was established there. It
was confirmed to them on the gift of Herbert de Morville and his

7 CBapp.214, 145 and 1.

sad @) San OKs

49Dodsworth, XCI, f.158.

Duedale, MA, V., p.s27n.

5!Dodsworth, XCI, f.15§7.

Thide, 11.457, 158; British-Library, Add. MSS 17121; CB, p:66.

C5 p90!

‘4There is an incomplete list of holdings in Bramhope in Dugdale, MA, V, 538-40.
Copies of some of the relevant charters are in British Library, Add. MSS 27413,
5—6b, gb-11b, 22-25sb.

20 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

son, Richard.°5 The abbey was dispossessed in 1173-74,°° probably
as a result of the involvement of the de Morevilles in the rebellion
against the king. An attempt by the Abbot Helias to recover the
grange was unsuccessful, but, on the petition of Roger de Lacy, it
was re-granted to the abbey in 1205 on condition that it also took
the manor of Bardsey and Collingham at a fee-farm of £90.57 The
land remained with the abbey until the Dissolution, but the site of
the grange cannot now be precisely located.

Land around Bessacar

The abbey’s most southerly possessions were those around
Bessacar and Cantley, about three and a half miles south-east of the
centre of Doncaster and about thirty-two miles from the abbey.
The land was held by Adam FitzPeter who, °a little dater; «was
involved in the grants in Horsforth and Keighley.**

William de Bessacar and William de Millerts granted land before
1162 and by the time William's son; Peter, confirmed) and
enlarged the grant, a grange and sheepfold had been established.
Geoffrey de St Patrick gave twelve bovates in Bessacar and Hugh
FitzHugh FitzNigel granted ten bovates in Brampton.

Among the benefactors in Cantley was Reginald, grandson of
William de Peitevin,®! who had given the abbey its site at Kirkstall.
Reginald held the land of Hugh FitzHugh, perhaps the grantor of
the land in Brampton.

Some Implications of Land Tenure

An attempt has been made to list all gifts to the abbey in 1 the period
up to about 1210, the date of the first compilation of the Coucher
Book. One hundred and thirty-eight gifts and grants of various
kinds have been noted, of which 126 are included in the Coucher
Book.

Of these 138 gifts, 128 were of land. Only in eighty-six of them
is there any indication in figures of the extent of the land conveyed,
but this is quite enough to make clear the large differences in the
size of the gifts. In some cases a whole vill was given: Cookridge by
Roger Mustel in 1172-74, Adel by his son, William, in 1198-1204,

EB. pea.

5° Fundacio, p.182.

‘7 Fundacio, p.187.

See above, p- 19:

CB, prusOn megs & VG. 6:
CB, PP. 1sOy b5es 165,103.

%' Dodsworth, VIII, f.75.

THE ABBEY’S LANDS AND BENEFACTORS pa
Allerton by Adam Samson,” and in a later period the manor of
Headingley was given in 1324 by John de Calverley. °3 Of the grants
where some idea of size was given the largest was that of Robert de
Lacy, who gave three carucates in Snydale.® Fifty-three gifts were
measured only in acres, and of these thirty-three were of five acres
or less and six were of only one acre. A number were gifts of
assarts. Occasionally the size of an assart is given and this varies
between eight and eleven® acres. The only indication of the size of
a culture, another common unit of grant, was at Wetecroft where
Robert FitzAsketin said his culture extended for ‘one acre and three
fods.°°

Of the ten gifts which were not of land, three were of annual
payments in cash. Henry de Lacy gave one mark each year for the
vesting of the abbot, and half a mark to keep a light burning in the
church before the Blessed Sacrament. Samson de Allerton gave five
shillings a year to the monks ‘to make them a pittance on St
Lawrence’s Day’®’ and Robert de Stapleton, shortly after this early
period, released a rent of half a mark so that the monks could
receive a pittance every St Botolph’s Day (17 June), his father’s
birthday.°®* Four were gifts of buildings, two were grants of rights
of way and the other was a gift of twenty cart-loads of hay.7°

No grants of rent are referred to in the records surviving from
this early period”! but it is clear from a fourteenth-century case that
such grants were made. Gifts of rent in Cleckheaton by Eudo de
Longvillers and his son, John, were referred to in a case heard in
York in 1348.7? Eudo was one of Henry de Lacy’s knights in 1166,
so that his gift must belong to the early days of the house.

A number of charters begin ‘omnibus hoc scriptum visuris vel
audituris’,7? suggesting that they were perhaps at some point read
aloud publicly, and there is evidence that boundaries were some-
times walked to establish the precise identity of the land conveyed.
Peter de Bessacar granted all the land which belonged to his fee ‘per

2B YG, Vil 240°CB, pp-78, 100
°3 Calverley Charters, p.161.

“4 CB, p.146

“GB, pp.240 174.

"CEB, pls;

°7CB, pp.s4, 55; Dodsworth, VIII, f.47b.
CB, pr204.

GD, Opts 55 075 132,-E7 C,, I, 202.
ICBy PPIs; 133; 200.

™For later grants of rent, see below, p.41.
“CB, pp:2,78-83.

(EES Ne PPL201, 262:

€

22 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

metas et divisas quas coram subscriptis testibus perambulavimus’,
and the line ofa fence or ditch between Newhall and Bolling to protect
the monks’ field from their neighbours’ beasts was agreed ‘secun-
dum... perambulationem per viros legales et fideles factam’.”4

Occasionally a gift was made in court. The gift of land in Burdon
by Hugh de Burdon and his wife, Beatrix, was made before the
king’s justices at Doncaster and Richard de Barkston’s grant at
Bishopthorpe 1n 1202 was also made before royal justices, includ-
ing the Bishop of Norwich. Richard de Wetecroft’s gift in
Wetecroft was made in the presence of the court of the wapentake
of Skyrack, meeting at Wigton windmill.?> William de Leathley
involved his men at Horsforth in the gift of Northcrofts. Agree-
ment was reached between the monks and the men of Horsforth
about the land to be given, William confirmed the land which his
men had conceded to the monks, rent was to be paid to the men
‘and so that my men shall concede this in a good spirit, the monks
have given them half a mark of silver’.”°

All these grants include some reason for the donation, generally
‘pro salute anime mee’ or ‘pro salute anime mee et uxoris mee et
heredum’. William, son of Nicholas de Allerton, granted land
within the ditch around the grange at Allerton ‘ut participemus
orationum et elemosinarum que fiunt in domo predictorum
monachorum’.”” Robert FitzHubert granted land in Horsforth ‘pro
animabus patris et matris sue et omnium parentum suorum et
omnium fidelium defunctorum ... et ut ipse et heredes sui
participes fierent omnium beneficiorum que fiunt in ecclesia’.”* We
should perhaps not assume too hastily that all such expressions
were merely conventional.”

In thirteen of the 138 grants at present under consideration the
abbey made a gift to the donor at the time of his grant ‘pro
recognitione’ or ‘pro caritate’.*° The gift was sometimes a sum of
money but more often money with a gift in kind and even presents
for the rest of the family. Roger de Ledston was given one mark of
silver and half a basket of corn, but Hugh FitzRobert received two
marks of silver and two horses and two cows, while his wife was

ACE. pp. ton, 170.

CD, Ppros, Lis:

PCB App 77> 92.

EB. D108.

BCR p71:

7See B. D. Hill, English Cistercian Monasteries and their Patrons in the Twelfth Century
(Urbana, 1968), pp.53-54, for a discussion of the motives of early Cistercian
founders and benefactors.

“Ce pp il, ia:

THE ABBEY ’S LANDS AND BENEFACTORS 23

given two cows. Robert FitzAsketin received twenty solidi and a
horse, his wife twenty ewes and his daughter a bridle for her
hiorse:*!

Of these 138 grants all but one were grants in frankalmoin, that is
the word ‘elemosina’ is included in the formula which describes
their form of tenure. The exception is the grant of Collingham and
Bardsey in fee-farm by King John.* ‘A gift in free and pure alms to
God and his saints has meant not merely, perhaps not principally,
that the land is to owe no rent, no military service to the donor, but
also and in the first place that it is to be subject only to the law and
courts of the church’.*} Maitland’s view has since been emphasised
by a number of other writers.*4 There would seem therefore to be
two aspects of frankalmoin tenure which should be considered: the
jurisdiction of the courts and the services which might be
demanded of holders of land held in frankalmoin.

Maitland surmised that ‘a glance at any monastic annals of the
twelfth century is likely to show that the ecclesiastical tribunals,
even the Roman curia, were constantly busy with the title to
English lands’.*’ The Kirkstall documents available do not support
Maitland’s suggestion, though none of the known documents
relating to land cases is earlier than 1198. No dispute about title to
land is recorded during this early period, and throughout the
history of the abbey any dispute about land was heard in the royal
courts, emther at Westmimster or by the justices on assize,
generally ate York; but also’ -at “Doncaster; Lancaster and
Northampton. The only cases on record which were heard before
church courts were those concerning tithe.

The question of services 1s more complicated. Frankalmoin
tenure was, in the twelfth century, primarily concerned with
jurisdiction and only secondarily with the exclusion of secular
service. It was, in any case, impossible for any tenant to release land
from the services which it bore, so that when land was re-granted it
MER Up isee7 2) 115:
°C By p22 U8.
83F, Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law, 2nd edn, reissued with

a new introduction and select bibliography by S. F.C. Milsom, 2 vols
(Cambridge, 1968), I, 251.
84E. G. Kimball, “Tenure in Frankalmoign and Secular Services’, EHR, XLIII

(1928), 341-53; F. M. Stenton, Transcripts of Charters relating to Gilbertine Houses,
Lincoln Record Society, XVIII (1922), xxvii; Hill, English Cistercian Monasteries,
pp- 56-57.

8s Pollock and Maitland, p.251.

°°E. G. Kimball, ‘The Judicial Aspects of Frankalmoign Tenure’, EHR, XLVII
(1932), 11, concluded that lay courts began to assume jurisdiction over church land
soon after the beginning of the thirteenth century.

24 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

was necessary to decide where the burden of services lay. Of the
138 grants rent or services are mentioned in only thirty-eight.*7 In
cases where service was not mentioned it was, presumably, borne
by the lord.** Robert Wallis was to receive from the monks for land
in Seacroft eight solidi annually ‘ad servicium faciendum’.*? Bracton
distinguished grants of land in which the word ‘pure’ was included
from those where it was not. “To sum up briefly Bracton’s theory,
it is this: land may be granted in free or free and perpetual alms for a
service due to the donor, or in free, pure and perpetual alms for no
such service’.°° The Kirkstall documents give some support to this
view. Of the 117 frankalmoin grants in the Coucher Book 110
include the word pure in the terms of the tenure; in only eighteen of
them is rent or service demanded, that is in two grants in every
thirteen. Of the grants not including the word ‘pure’ fourteen out
of fifteen include a rent charge. It is not possible to date these
documents sufficiently closely to see whether these differences in
terminology and the exaction of rent represent a developing
practice in frankalmoin in the half-century at present under
consideration.
Rents varied in amount from one denarius to three marks per
year, and were usually paid in two instalments, at Pentecost and at
the feast of St Martin (11 November). For land described in bovates
the rate was fairly uniform at Is. per bovate per year, but where the
land was described in carucates the rate varied from ss. tod. to one
mark®! per carucate, both in Headingley, though it was most often
8s., that is still at 1s. per bovate. Where land was described in acres
the rates varied widely, from about 2d. per year in Pontefract to
IS. per acre per year in nearby Darrington.** Rent was occasionally
demanded in kind; for example, the pound of pepper annually for
land in Snydale and the pound of cummin from Rawdon.?!
The total of all rents payable by the abbey on lands granted up to
about 1210 amounted to £10 §s. 9d. If with this is compared the
fee-farm of £90 for the land at Collingham and Bardsey granted by
King John,°%4 the wholly exceptional nature of this grant, both in
*‘7In two of these 38 gifts forinsec service only is required, leaving 36 where an
annual payment of some kind is demanded, that is, about a quarter. Hill (English
Cistercian Monasteries, p.72) misled by the small sample which he examined,
concluded that the number was about a half.

*8Pollock and Maitland, p.245.

CB, purr.

° Kimball, “Tenure in Frankalmoign and Secular Services’, pp.342-43.

“CB, pp.04, 57:

Seven acres for a rent of 4d. annually, CB, pp.153, 152.

CB, pp. las, 67%

OD, pu2ier

THE ABBEY ’S LANDS AND BENEFACTORS 25

the size “of the=rent demanded and in the terms of the grant,
becomes apparent, though it is exceptional only in its being held
by a monastic house and not by a layman.%

It is worth examining the way in which rents are described in
the charters where an annual payment is demanded. In some it is
simply ‘reddendo annuatim ... u solidos’ or ‘monachi dabunt
mihi annuatim ii solidos’,%* but in a large number the money
payment is clearly regarded not as a payment for the use of land
or buildings but as a commutation of services due from the land.
Thus the abbey will pay to Roger de Ledstone ‘iii denarios .. .
pro omnibus serviciis que ad terram pertinent’ and to William de
Peitevin and his heirs ‘singulis annis unam tantum marcam pro
omnibus serviciis et consuetudinibus que mihi vel dominis meis
pertinent.”

In the fourteenth century the use of the word ‘redditum’ for
rent is more usual, but the idea that such a payment was in place
of services remained.**

Of the 138 ‘carly ‘grants, services other “than ‘rents’ are
demanded in eleven instances and of these ten refer to ‘forinsec
service .°? Stenton argued that “im the reign of Henry I] this
phrase has not yet become a synonym for military service,‘ but
in all the Kirkstall documents the context makes it clear that it is
in fact military service which is being demanded. The formula is
usually ‘faciendo forense servicium, quantum pertinet ad
dimidiam carrucatem terre, unde viginti carrucate faciunt feodum
unius militis’.'’ The remarkable point about such grants is the
extent to which knights’ fees had been divided. In one case only,
thav-ot Adel,™? did the abbey hold by the service of a whole
knight. The equivalents of one-eighth, one-sixteenth, one-
nineteenth, three-twentieths, one twenty-fourth and one-fortieth
@f-the- ‘Service: of a knight's fee are’ demanded, and in one
instance, even one one-hundred-and-ninety-second!'°} The land

°° William de Stutevill held the same land for £100, CB, p.217.

"CB. p77, see alsoubid., pp.78, 99, 72:

27 GiB, 652; for exanple, p.59:

eee Allerton, CB, pp.8d, 85.

°° The exception is CB, p.195, where service is demanded but not specified.

0 F M. Stenton, Documents illustrative of the Social and Economic History of the
Danelaw, British Academy Records of the Social and Economic History of
England and Wales, V (1920), p.cxxvil.

CB, P99:

CB pays:

'3 CB, p.175. ‘Quantum pertinet ad unam bovetam, unde xii carrucate faciunt
feodum dimidii militie.’

26 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

which formed the equivalent of a knight’s fee varied across the
area in which Kirkstall held land. The following table gives some
idea of the variation:

Carucates per

knight’s 2 Location Reference
62 Bramley CB. 29
8 Headingley CB, 65
IO Wetecroft CE ar
r2 Eastburn CB, 186
12'h Eastburn CB, 137
14 Keighley CB;<224
16" Allerton CB, 106
20 Burdon CB, 86
a4" Pudsey CB. 175

* Expressed in the charter as half a knight’s fee and here raised to the equivalent
of a whole fee.

As Maitland has commented, ‘the appearance of small
fractional parts of a knight’s fee could hardly be explained, were
it not that the king had been in the habit of taking money in lieu
of military service, of taking scutage .. .’,"°4 and the position is
made absolutely clear by Robert de Brearey in his gift of land in
Brearey:

Monachi vero facient forense servicium, hoc est quantum
pertinet ad nonamdecimam partem servicii militis. Ita tamen
uod nec hominem nec equum nec arma invenient, sed per
eee suos terram defendent. ‘>

The date of this grant is earlier than 1198 and it may even
belong to the time of the first abbot.'°°

All the charters include a sentence of warranty undertaking,
for example, to ‘defend the said land to the monks everywhere
and against all men’. It is possible that the grant at Newhall by
Hugh Vavasour'®’ was to make good a loss to the monks. It was
granted ‘in escambium illius bovete quam Matildis filia Roberti
dirationavit versus me et eosdem monachos coram Justiciariis
itinerantibus’. William Paynel granted to the Hospitallers land in

'°4 Pollock and Maitland, p.256.

COB, p82,

'°6 Tt is included in the tithe agreement with Adel church, CB, p.93. Land at Brearey
is included in the list in Fundacio, p.181.

OD, P.Ag2t

THE ABBEY’S LANDS AND BENEFACTORS a

Hooton Pagnell in exchange for land granted to them in Eccup and
Adel'°* which they had lost at the time of Kirkstall’s expansion into
the Adel area.

Occasionally the warranty was more specific. Robert de Burdon
promised that if by chance he or his heirs were unable to warrant
the land they would give to them ‘an exchange in the same vill to
the same value’.'°? Robert de Lacy promised land in exchange to
the same value from his demesne. ''°

Gifts or grants to the abbey during the first century of its history
were almost all gifts of land. Of the 138 gifts during the first half of
that century only one or perhaps two were of rent. In the second
half-century the proportion rose to thirteen out of seventy-six or
about one grant in six. Over the half-century 1260-1310, of a much
smaller number of grants, the proportion had risen to three in every
five. After that the operation of the statute Quia Emptores created an
entirely different situation. These figures of rents relate only to new
grants and not to land rented to tenants after it had been granted to
the abbey. It was in this latter way that the greater part of the
abbey’s income from rents was gained.

Grants of Land in the Later Period
Some attempt must now be made to explain the falling off in grants
to the abbey which has been noted above. Clearly factors operating
generally throughout the country and even throughout the western
Church affected Kirkstall also. While it would be a mistake to talk
ef a lack of, or even a decline in, religious fervour in the age of
Grosseteste and Alexander of Hales, of the impact of the friars on
England, of the great religious buildings at Westminster and many
of our greatest cathedrals, yet, as far as the older orders were
concerned, their ‘early fertility had gone’™' and the foundation of
the Cistercian abbey of Hayles in 1251 ‘was in a sense the end of a
chapter. It was the furthest wash of the tide from Citeaux’.'!?
There is, however, a particular factor which needs more careful
examination. It has been argued that grants of land to monasteries
reduced the services available to overlords and to the Crown.'%
The case has not been proved.''* There are a number of examples

VEY C, V 16256:

CBs poo.

tr Bk pe 202),

"tT Knowles, RO, I, s.

PANU. «vO:

"3 Hill, English Cistercian Monasteries, p.60.

4 See review of B. D. Hill’s book by S. Wood, EHR, LX XXIV (1969), 824.

28 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

described in the Coucher Book and elsewhere''’ from the period
1256-1314 which show the overlord enforcing by distraint services
due from land which had been granted to the abbey. The cases
arose where the abbot had been distrained upon for service,
generally suit of court but in one case for scutage as well, because
the tenant of whom the abbey held land had failed to quit the abbey
of the~service due to his lord. The cases related to- land “in
Darrington, Horsforth and Keighley, West Armley and Adel
respectively. The first three were initiated by the abbot to recover
the loss he claimed to have suffered through his being required to
undertake services which should have been performed by the
mesne tenant between the abbey and the lord to whom the services
were due. In all four cases the abbot’s right to quittance of services
by the terms of his grant was upheld. The Horsforth and Keighley
case was complicated when the respondent, in this case Adam de
Everingham, argued that the abbot had never been distrained to
perform the services which he (Adam) should have performed.

These cases make it clearvthat ‘grants m frankalmom “did not
necessarily result in loss of services to the overlord and that where
he was determined to do so services could be enforced.

Plucknett has discussed this situation'!® and concluded that ‘the
old action of mesne where the sub-tenant could compel the mesne
to do his duty to the lord was slow and cumbersome and in any
case was ineffective’. The procedure may have been slow and
cumbersome — the Horsforth and Keighley case lasted for at least
seven years (1307-14) — but it does not seem to have been
ineffective in the cases described.

Hill might have been on firmer ground had he distinguished
between feudal services and feudal incidents.''7 It has been empha-
sised by a number of writers’ that it was dissatisfaction among the
lords about loss of feudal incidents from lands granted to religious
houses which led to considerable discontent in the thirteenth
century, expressed first of all in Magna Carta, then in enactments
by successive parliaments and culminating in the statute of
mortmain in 1279. ‘His new tenant [that is, the monastery] never
died, and so there was no ward to be in wardship, to pay relief or to

“CB, p.145; p.231 and the sequel, p:227;p.234 and C. W.« Foster, ed-. Final
Concords of the County of Lincoln, I, Lincoln Record Society, XVII (1920), 114.

"TF. T. Plucknett, Legislation of Edward I (Oxford, 1949), pp.92-94.

"7 For a useful account of feudal incidents with special reference to the period in
question, see]. M. W. Bean, The Decline of English Feudalism (Manchester, 1968),
pp.6-16.

8 Plucknett, pp.94-100; Bean, pp. 51-53.

THE ABBEY’S LANDS AND BENEFACTORS 29

be married, and no possibility of escheat for felony or for failure of
heirs.’"'? The sharp decline in grants to Kirkstall coincides with the
period when action was being taken in Parliament to reduce grants to
religious houses without the authority of the overlord.’ The
Kirkstall figures also show clearly that grants had seriously declined
well before the statute of mortmain was promulgated and it would be
difficult to show that the statute had any effect at all upon new grants
to the abbey.

The process by which, after the statute, land was acquired by
religious bodies’?! can be illustrated fully from the Kirkstall
documents. A precept for the necessary inquisition ad quod damnum, in
this case dated 1312 and in respect of a proposed grant by William de
Peitevin of land in Headingley, 1s printed in the Coucher Book’? and
the findings of the inquisition in 1323 which preceded John of
Calverley’s grant of the manor of Headingley are given in full.'?3 Of
the thirty-one licences issued to Kirkstall'*4 the related inquisitions
can be identified for all but one, '*5 this being the appropriation of the
church ot Bracewell’? im 1347. Phe licence to alienate issued by
Richard II in respect of grants by Sir John Mauleverer and Elizabeth
Bendy is included in full in the Monasticon,'*? and in many cases the
charter which recorded the conveyance of the land is known.

The practice of using a general licence to acquire land or rent up toa
certain amount is said to have been introduced in order to reduce the
amount which would have to be paid in fines. '?* On one occasion only
did Kirkstall make use of such a facility. Grants up to a total value of
£20 were allowed.’ Although it has not been possible to trace all the
grants which made up this total it is clear that this general licence did
not obviate the need for an inquisition in each case.

As the fourteenth century progressed it became increasingly usual
for the licence to be issued to the abbey to acquire land from more than
one donor and under the name of one donor to include a very varied

+ Plucknett, p.05.

— Bean, post.

'21 See a useful short article by A. Gooder, ‘Mortmain and the Local Historian’, The
Local Historian, [X (1971), 387-93.

GB. pe3 30:

26 BD. 1p-300

VV CPR, passim:

'25 Inquisitions ad quod damnum are listed in PRO, Lists and Indexes, I (1904); II (1906).

2° CPR, 1345-48, p.431.

i Dugdale VA, V, 545.

28K. L. Wood-Legh, Studies in Church Life under Edward III (Cambridge, 1934),
p-64.

29 CPR, 1307-13, p.434.

30 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

grant. It looks as if licences were not applied for until a number of
proposed grants could be dealt with at the same time and this again
might be expected to reduce the costs of the operation. A licence
issued in 1377%3° covered grants by six donors and one of the
licences issued in 1392'3' covered three donors, of which the grants
by William de Horbury and John Chapman, both of Yeadon, were
described as follows:

. one messuage in York held of the King in burgage; Io
messuages 9 tofts, 6 bovates, 77 acres of land, 15 of land, 15 of
meadow, 6s. 6d. rent in Bardsey, Ecup, Horsforth, Armley,
Headingley, Allerton Gledhow.

William de Horbury and John Chapman do not appear elsewhere
in the abbey records, either as benefactors or as witnesses to
charters. The same is true of William de Lepton of Wortley and
William Poyd of Adel and of William Spyrard, all of whom were
similarly involved in licences to alienate in mortmain at about this
time. These men were perhaps acting as agent for the donors or
possibly as executors.'3? This suggestion is supported by the
survival of a power of attorney granted to William de Lepton by
Henry the Cowhird [sic] of Collingham in respect of a grant of
land to Kirkstall, and also by indications in a number of charters
that the land was part of the estate of a deceased person. Richard
Marshall granted land ‘of the gift and enfeoffment of’ Horbury and
Chapman which had once belonged to William Webster and
Matilda, Marshall’s mother. "33 In 1392 the abbey was given licence
to acquire from William Spyrard land which the charter shows to
have been formerly of Richard, son of William Brown.'4 William
de Lepton and William Poyd of Adel granted to the abbey ‘all the
lands which we have from the gift and enfeoffment of John
Attewood’."35 It is clear that if the estate of a deceased person was to
pass to the abbey it would be necessary for the land to be held by
someone while the procedure for securing the licence was
followed. In 1393 William Baxter, rector of Adel, conveyed to
Kirkstall two messuages and a considerable amount of land in
Brearey, Arthington and Allerton Gledhow with which he had
been enfeoffed by John de Brearey, descendant of the Brearey
family which had been associated with the abbey since its early days

MOCPR,. 1377-81, p64:

31 CPR, 1391-96, p.43.
"Cr, Goodet,-p:391:

™ “Charters, Allerton’, p.99:
MATHId., p98.

3° 101d... Pri 03.

THE ABBEY S§ LANDS AND BENEFACTORS 31

in Airedale. Here again William Baxter appears to have been acting as
agent or executor for John de Brearey. "3°,

To what extent the overlord or ‘the chief lord of whom the thing is
immediately held’ should be consulted in the acquisition of land by the
church was a question which had been very much the concern of the
parliaments of the middle years of the thirteenth century. The statute
ignored it but the form of licence used by Edward I referred to the
‘licence of us and of the chief lord of whom the thing is immediately
held’.'37 In one case, among the licences to acquire land issued to
Kirkstall, leave was granted to acquire land from Robert Mauleverer,
Richard Marshall, Edmund Frank and William de Brighton all of
whom held a considerable amount of land in Allerton Gledhow."3*
Frank was the heir of all the land held by the de Allerton family who
had been among the abbey’s earliest benefactors and whose
association with the abbey had been continuous since that time;
Mauleverer was the representative of a family with interests in
Horsforth, Rawdon and Allerton. The Marshalls had held land in
Allerton for nearly two centuries and were successively witnesses to
many grants of land there. In the event no land was granted by these
men. It seems likely that the licence to acquire land from them referred
to land which would be granted by their tenants. The ‘chief lords’
were thus involved from the beginning and subsequent actions which
might have led to forfeiture would be avoided. "39 On some occasions
the ‘chief lord’ gave permission before the land was acquired. This
was done by William Killingbeck before Henry the Cowhird and
Mary, his wife, made their grant'#° andJohn Scot, Robert Mauleverer
and their sons gave permission to acquire land formerly held by John
Attewood.""

It is possible in a number of cases during the fourteenth century to
link the initial inquisition, the licence to alienate and the final grant of
land. Inanumber of other cases, however, the link between the licence
to alienate and the grant can be made only if one of the above
possibilities is allowed; that is, that the licence 1s given to the abbey to
acquire land from someone who is not the real donor but someone
who is acting either for him or his overlord. The mass of grants in the
Allerton area in 1392-93 can only be satisfactorily accounted for on

3° CPR, 1391-96, p.283; Bodleian Library, MS Top., Yorkshire e 2 (Watson MSS),
Loa

“7 Plucknett, p. 100.

38 CPR, 1391-96, p.43.

'39 For such an action, see Plucknett, p.10r.

“c“Clwarters, Allerton’, p.103.

‘41 Ibid., p.96.

32 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

this basis. This still, however, leaves a number of grants not fully
explained. It has been emphasised how rigorously the statute was
enforced.'# There are, however, among the Kirkstall charters grants
which, on the evidence available, suggest that grants were made
without the necessary licence having been obtained. '*3 There are also
examples of licences to alienate not apparently followed by a grant of
land, ‘4 but this is more easily understood and may well result from
loss of evidence or from a proposed course of action not carried
through.

On two occasions Kirkstall was pardoned for acquiring land
without the necessary licence. On one of these, for a payment of
eighteen marks, they were allowed to keep the three houses in York
which they had acquired illegally.'4

The other great statute of Edward I’s reign which directly affected
grants of land was Quia Emptores of 1290. The expected effect was that
newly acquired lands would be by substitution and not by further
subinfeudation and the creation of new tenures. Where we have
evidence this is exactly what emerges. When Headingley was granted
to the abbey by John de Calverley in 1324"4° the abbot became the
tenant of the ‘chief lord’ at Pontefract instead of John de Calverley. A
number of grants in Allerton were grants which had been previously
held by someone else; for example, the land granted by Henry the
Cowhird was ‘formerly of William Hagger and Cecily his wife’.
Richard Marshall granted land which was once of William Webster
and Matilda, Marshall’s mother; the land granted by William Spyrard
was described as ‘once of Richard Brown, son of William Brown of
Allerton aforesaid’ .*4”

The acquisition of the manor of Headingley, and indeed of any land
held by military tenure might involve the abbot not only in services
due to the overlord, but alsoin the receipt of services and incidents due
from his tenants. Thus land in Allerton, formerly held by William de
Morwyck and by William and Margaret de Couthorp'#* was acquired
with wardships, fealties, reliefs, escheats, suits of court and other
services. Only on one occasion can the abbot be seen performing any
of the duties attached to sucha lordship, when, in 1526, he disposed of
Jennett Watson in marriage with William, son of Richard Rookes of
Roydes Hall. "49

'#? Wood-Legh, p.61.

“ss Evg., Cnarters, Allerton, pps8i, 86, 80.

Meee, (CUR, 1334—-36,.(p. 72:

45 CPR, 1408-13, p.241; see also CPR, 1307-13, p.436.
'4© Calverley Charters, p.16.

mT “Charters, Allerton , pp.104, 00, 07.

1bid.) p84.

WONDIG.5. put ely

3
Economic Organization and Development

Granges and Lay-brothers

The Cistercian order had begun as a purely spiritual movement,
asking of the world only enough to provide the bare necessities of
lite. Yet,-before the order was a century old, it had made an
enormous impact on the economic life of western Europe. This
was due partly to the great popularity of the order, associated
especially with the personality of St Bernard, which carried its
influence far and wide, but also to the Cistercians’ revolutionary
agrarian organization, based on its granges and lay-brothers.'

The establishment of granges goes back to the earliest days of the
history of Kirkstall Abbey. When the community moved to its
permanent Site their first -seat’ was ‘reduced to a’ grange’;
Micklethwaite is referred to as a grange in the days of the first
abbot;} granges at Allerton, Bessacar and Oldfield (Keighley) are
referred to in charters which may well date from the same time*
and ‘two granges neighbouring the abbey’ — perhaps Bar Grange
(Burley) and New Grange (West Headingley) — are included in the
list of lands acquired under the same abbot. To the last years of the
century belong the Accrington grange,° established under Abbot
Lambert during the years 1190-93, and possibly also granges at
Brearey, Cookridge and Snydale.° The grange at Hooton Pagnell
must also have been established early as it was relinquished to the
Luttrell family in 1204.’ By 1288 there were, in addition to these, a
second grange near Keighley known as Elam, and others at Burley
(as well as Bar Grange) and Moor Grange (Headingley).* The
grange for the lands in Bolland was at Rushton.?

A total of twenty-five granges can be identified, not all of them
active at the same time. Cliviger was short-lived'® and was replaced
by Accrington, '' which, with the grange at Roundhay, was lost to
‘Knowles, MO, pp.215-16. L. J. Lekai, The White Monks (Okauchee, Wis., 1953),
pp.209-13.

*Fundacio, p.179.

’Fundacio, p.182.

1CB.pp.104, 159) 179.

‘Fundacio, p.184.

°The grange at Snydale is referred to in CB, p.148, which 1s pre-1210.

TEE, ps0).

®PRO, E142/86/T.

°CB, p.203, a charter of John de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and therefore 1232-40.
'° Fundacio, p.184.

"' [bid.

34 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

the earl of Lincoln when he helped the abbey out of its financial
difficulties in 1287.'* Some granges appear only late in the abbey’s
history. Some, for example, Wether Grange (Bramley), appear first
in the 1459 rent-roll, while others, such as New Lathes (Horsforth)
and the second grange at Allerton, are first mentioned at the
Dissolution.'} A further possibility is that the same grange appears
under “different names: For example, Dean Grange.-wasat
Horsforth, but whether this is the same as the grange at Horsforth”
cannot be decided with certainty. It seems likely that there were
about twenty granges in the last century of the abbey’s history,
most of them by this time let for rent.

The size of granges shows wide variation. In 1288 Compton
(possibly Micklethwaite) comprised 444 acres, while Dean Grange
(Horsforth) had only 95 acres and Elam (Keighley) only 48."

Of the lay-brothers in the early days little can be said. We are told
that ten lay-brothers accompanied the monks who left Fountains in
1147.'° One would expect a large increase in that number during
the second half of the twelfth century. '”

Little is known of the organisation of the granges; Knowles has
seen the thirteenth century as the period when, as ‘primitive zeal
was lost’, lay-brothers replaced monk-wardens in charge of
granges."* The grange at Accrington was ‘ruled by’ three
lay-brothers, Norman, Humphrey and Robert, before the end of
the twelfth century,'? but this was a distant grange and perhaps
therefore not typical. Adam, a lay-brother, was described as a
‘grangarius’ of Micklethwaite in a document which may belong to
the middle years of the thirteenth century,”° and in 1276 brother
Peter was granger at Barnoldswick.?!

What staff the three lay-brothers at Accrington might have ‘ruled
over’ is not indicated. Abbot Lambert is said to have ‘removed the
inhabitants’ of the vill of Accrington,** but it is possible that ‘even
where depopulation is alleged to have occurred its effect can seldom
have been complete’:*? There are many teferencessto ‘giants~ot.

'2See below, pp.43-44.

'3 Account 1539-40.

CB apr

'SFigures from the 1288 extent.
'© Fundacio, p.174.

'7 Knowles, MO, p.348.

'8 Knowles, RO, I, 74.

'? Fundacio, p.184.

PB on 22h

*1 Rotuli Hundredorum, I, 112.

* Fundacio, p.184.

*3C. Platt, The Monastic Grange in Medieval England (1969), p.83.

ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT 35

villeins to the abbey.*4 Their total number cannot be calculated as
such grants are often expressed in such terms as ‘all the men I have
in that vill (Cliviger) and all their families and chattels’.*5 It is clear,
however, that they must have formed an important part of the
abbey’s labour force. The only reference to a servant is to the
unfortunate serving-boy whose ear Peter, the granger of Barnolds-
wick, cut off for stealing two loaves of bread.”°

Exploitation of Land

Two factors may have influenced the location of grants of land.
One was clearly the particular interests and loyalties of the
grantors. So Kirkstall never received grants beyond the river
Wharfe in the Harewood area where the Meschin family had a
special interest in Bolton Priory. The other reason was perhaps the
availability of waste. All the land granted to the abbey in the de
Lacy and Paynel fees was in vills shown as waste in Domesday or,
in a very few cases, where the value was very much reduced. There
was; of course, much waste land in the Leeds area, but in Leeds
itself, which was not waste, no grants were received until a much
later ‘date.

To the lay-brothers would have fallen the responsibility for
making productive these gifts of land, much of it waste, which
began to come to the community as soon as it reached Kirkstall.
They were almost certainly helped by peasant labour. Reclamation
from waste had, however, begun before the monks received their
grants. Endowments are often described as ‘cultures’ or ‘assarts’,
suggesting recent cultivation.*? The Coucher Book gives the
impression that clearance had been particularly vigorous at
Horsforth where all the charters which relate to grants of land use
such descriptions.

Places ending in *-thwaite’, usually meaning a clearing, are rare
in Domesday, but become increasingly common from about 1150
onwards.** Micklethwaite, which does not appear in Domesday,
was one of Kirkstall’s earliest and most important acquisitions.

*4CB, passim. Grants of villeins only are grouped together, pp.205—09.

CB, p.195. This must date from before 1200 as Cliviger was given up by Abbot
Lambert, c. 1193 (Fundacio, p.184).

7E.g., CB, pp.67, 73. Such examples could be multiplied.

*8H. Lindkvist, Middle English Place-names of Scandinavian Origin (Uppsala, 1912),

p.99

36 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

Evidence of clearing by the monks themselves is provided by fines
exacted by the king for encroachment on the royal forest. Between
TI69 and T170 they ‘paid-2£7 10s,” in 1177-78); 38. Od.,°° and an
1184-85 again £7 1os., which was, however, pardoned by the king.3'
Clearance of land was going on wellinto the thirteenth century at least
when, at a date perhaps between 1220 and 1250, William de Allerton
gave the monks permission ‘to assart nine acres of landin Mikelker’.*?
The monks sometimes marked the boundaries of their land by
digging ditches or by the erection of a stone cross.?3

The monks were not only interested in their land for the crops it
would produce. There is evidence from their earliest history that they
were occupied in the working of metals. The grant of a forge and land
at Ardsley is recorded in a charter of Henry II witnessed by Thomas
the Chancellor, which must therefore date from before 1163.34 Land
and mineral rights were granted in Seacroft by William de Somerville
on condition that the monks should provide his men with iron for
their ploughs and also fill up the pits left by their workings.?5 In later
years at least there were smithies at Weetwood and Hesywell, which
were included in the demesne lands at the Dissolution,?° though they
had recently been leased with permission to take sufficient wood to
make charcoal.37 Minerals beneath the lordship of Horsforth were
also worked at the time of the surrender of the house, but not by the
monks themselves.3* What those minerals were is not specified.

Much of the abbey’s land was, of course, arable and there are
references to plough oxen at Roundhay grange and Bramley, to
twenty-four oxen at Aldfield, and to oxen ‘ploughing the said land’ at
Armley.*° There are frequent references in the charters to pasture fora

2 The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 16th Year of King Henry II, Pipe Roll Society, XV
(1892), p.4I.

8° The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 24th Year of King Henry II, ed. J. H. Round, Pipe
Roll Society, XXIV (1906), p.70.

3! The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 31st Year of King Henry II, ed. J. H. Round, Pipe
Roll Society, XXXIV (1913), p.74.

CD18 2.

3B, pp: 107, 66:

4 Dugdale, MA, V, 536.

35Dodsworth, VIII, f.58. See also CB, p.127.

36 Account 1539-40.

37PRO, MS lease 378. E303/23, Yorkshire.

38 Account 1539-40.

39 Excavations on the abbey site appeared to have revealed an iron-smelting furnace
within the cloister precincts, T. A. Hume and D. E. Owen, Kirkstall Abbey
Excavations, sth Report (PTh.S, XLVII, 1955), 77-80. This is now, however,
known to have been a smith’s hearth and not a bloomery, R. A. Mott, ‘Kirkstall
Forge and Monkish Iron-making’, PTh.S, LUI (1972), 155, n.4.

CB, Pp. 53, 035 180,04:

ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT 37

certain number of animals, but it cannot be established that the
specified number of animals was actually kept on the land. There
were, however, probably large herds at Rushton where Robert de
Lacy gave ‘pasture for 160 horses with their fodder for two years
and 200 cows with their fodder for three years’.4’ Armley had
pasture for cows and goats, Riddlesden for cows, Horsforth,
Potternewton and Osmondthorp for pigs, Aldfield and Burley for
goats, Roundhay for cows, pigs and deer-calves,** while Bessacar
had pasture for forty horses and for ‘cows and pigs without
number’.4} There were poultry at Rushton. *

Pasture for large flocks of sheep was granted, though it would be
rash to assert that the number of sheep specified was actually kept.
It may have been a way of describing roughly the size of the grant.
The largest such grant, and one of the earliest, was at Bessacar, for
1000 sheep; for 7oo at Seacroft,*© for 300 at Bramhope,
Potternewton and Cookridge,*’ for 240 at Beeston* and for flocks
of 200 at Riddlesden,- Austhorpe, Clifford and Snydale
respectively,*? with smaller flocks at many other places. Only at
Barnoldswick, Rushton and Accrington is pasture for sheep not
mentioned. If the number of sheep for which pasture had been
granted by about 1220 is added together the total is 4,680, but while
this may be an unreliable guide to the size of the abbey’s flocks at
that date, the figure is not an unlikely one.°*°

Sheep-farming and the Production of Wool

Professor Knowles considered that it was towards the end of the
twelfth century that the Cistercians established themselves as the
leading producers of wool.’ Sheep-farming was certainly well
established at Kirkstall by about that date. There is a reference to
the monks’ sheep-fold at Bessacar in a charter of the son of the
original grantor of the pasture there, ** to the monks’ 200 sheep in

CB DP $3.

“CIE PPLO“e- 1S > 7h, HOOMIZ2,, 18 17O1, 53:
OEY, Il, £56.

CB. x53

ee Cail 156.

OB, xb 2

AEB; G00:

BCD, PI24S-

7G, PPylsA-TLO, 138, 150.
°°See below, p.4o.
‘Knowles, MO, p.352.
CBP 5 8.

38 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

their sheep-fold at Wyke and to 400 at Bardsey in a document dated
1209.53 Sheep-folds also existed at Cookridge, Allerton, Aus-
thorpe, Seacroft and Newhall. Land suitable for making a
sheep-fold was granted at Pudsey.** All these references may be
dated to the later twelfth or early thirteenth centuries. These folds
were probably light, temporary structures, ‘the walls resembling
brushwood hedges placed around growing meadows’.®*

Information on farming practice is scanty. When pasture rights
were granted near the abbey’s grange at Aldfield the monks were
allowed to keep the lambs with the sheep ‘until they are weaned;
then all the lambs shall be removed except forty which shall remain
there for the whole year in addition to the said number of 200
sheep’.°° In a charter of William de Somerville which may be dated
not later than 1193 the donor requires that 400 of the monks’ 700
sheep shall be folded on his own land.*’ This is perhaps because of
the value of the sheeps’ manure.‘* The monks were given
permission to remove their sheep if they feared murrain among
them.

The only clue to the kind of sheep kept on the Kirkstall pastures
comes from a much later date. In the mid-fifteenth century the
Cistercians were allowed to eat meat and a meat kitchen was built
at the abbey. An analysis of the animal remains found when the
meat-kitchen was excavated showed the existence of two kinds of
sheep: horned, the short-woolled sheep, and hornless, the
long-woolled or valley sheep,*°? but it would clearly not be safe to
conclude that these two kinds of sheep were kept on the abbey’s
pastures in the thirteenth century.

The names are known of some of the wool-merchants with
whom the abbey had dealings. The financial statement for the year
1284 refers to the company of James de Pistokis® and there is
reference in a document in the Coucher Book to relations with the
Betti of Lucca.*' The merchants of Pistoia were among the

3B, perl.

CB, pp.96, 104, 116, 124, 244; “Charters, Allerton:.p.45.

5SR. A. Donkin, ‘Bercaria and Lanaria’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, X XIX
(1956-58), 449.

S°CB, pp.184-85.

CD. dD we,

*’Knowles, RO, I, 71, where Knowles has estimated that the sheep’s manure might
be worth one-third of the price raised for the wool-clip.

9M. L. Ryder, ‘The Animal Remains found at Kirkstall’, Agricultural History
Review, VII (1959), Pt 1, I-S.

° Fundacio, p.189.

"CB, pp.225-27.

ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT 39

companies used by the papacy at this period as depositaries,° and
the Betti can be identified from the Hull customs roll of 1275.°
N. Denholm-Young has found the abbey also in debt to the
merchants of Florence in 1278.% If wool was sold to Florentine
merchants it must have been shipped by merchants of another city
or nation as Florentine ships did not begin to appear in English
waters until the fifteenth century.°°

The Coucher Book document which refers to the Betti provides
almost the only information we have about the working of the
wool trade at Kirkstall. The abbey had agreed in 1292 to sell all its
wool for ten years to these merchants at 15 marks a sack for the
good wool, 92 marks for the medium quality and 8 marks for
‘lock’, or poor quality wool. The merchants paid to the abbey an
advance of 160 marks which would be allowed to them out of their
instalments at 20 marks per year for the last eight years of the
contract. This money had been assigned to the King in part
payment of a debt to him by the Betti and the King now sued
Kirkstall for the money. The agreement had apparently brought
the merchants into financial difficulties and they had been unable to
keep their part of the contract, but the court upheld the abbey and
the merchants’ money was forfeit. The practice of forward selling,
so often condemned by the general chapter, is seen clearly here
and also the Cistercians’ practice of sorting the wool into three
grades. There would appear to be another reference to forward
selling in the financial statement of 1284°’ where five sacks of wool
are shown as owing to Bernard Talde, about whom nothing more
is known.

The only other information comes from the well-known list of
English monastic houses included in La Pratica della Mercatura by
Francesco Balducci Pegolotti,“ a Florentine who represented the
great banking firm of Bardi and who was in England during the
years 1317-21. It has been subjected to a number of different
interpretations.°® Not even the precise date is certain. It can,

°W. E. Lunt, Papal Revenues of the Middle Ages, 1 (New York, 1934), p.304.

6N. S. B. Gras, The Early English Customs System (Cambridge [Mass.], 1918),
pp.225, 233-35, 237, 243.

°#N. Denholm-Young, Seignorial Administration in England (Oxford, 1937), p.61.

6’ A. Ruddock, ‘Italian Trading Fleets in Medieval England’, History, n.s., XXIX
(1944), 197.

* Denholm-Young, p.55.

°7 Fundacio, p.189.

°F. Balducci Pegolotti, La Practica della Mercatura, ed. A. Evans (Cambridge
[Mass.], 1936).

°° Denholm-Young, pp.53-54. Knowles, RO, I, 70-71; Pegolotti, p.xxix.

40 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

however, be said that about 1320 Kirkstall was producing at least
twenty-five sacks of wool per year. This compares with
seventy-six at Fountains, sixty at Rievaulx and twenty-five at
Meaux.

The number of sheep had risen from none in the account of 1284
to 4,500 at the visitation of 1301.7? A production of twenty-five
sacks per year would represent a further increase, but by exactly
how much it is difficult to say. If each sack contained 300 fells, then
Kirkstall had at least 7,500 sheep,”' but on the basis of figures which
Knowles took from Grosseteste and other sources” the corres-
ponding figure would be 5,500.

The Economy in 1288

Am extent of the abbey’s lands, dated.3 April. 1288,. provides
valuable evidence of the agrarian economy of the house at that
date.”3 Certain lands are, however, excluded” and, as the summary
of Kirkstall’s assets in 1284 shows no sheep at all,”5 the balance of
arable to pastoral farming may be an exceptional one.

In 1287, when the earl of Lincoln began to help the house out of
severe financial difficulties, the king charged him ‘if perchance the
abbot and convent . . . require that their lands and tenements be
valued as to their yearly income from all sources . . . then if the
creditors themselves agree you shall cause it to be carried into
effect’.7° If this was the occasion of the survey it would clearly be in
the monks’ interests to secure as low a valuation as possible, and
this could be achieved by exaggerating the amount of land under
the plough at the expense of that used for pasture.

Some of the places listed, and perhaps all, are granges. Bar
Grange and Moor Grange are included, La Dene is probably Dean
Grange; early granges are known at Burley, Allerton, Brearey,
Cookridge and Elam, and all these are included. The extent shows
wide variations in the size of the granges — 48 acres at Elam, 307 at
Bar Grange and 444 at Compton, if this is Micklethwaite grange. It
also shows wide variations in land values. Pasture was worth
Is. 8d. an acre at Cookridge and 4s. at Clifford; arable was worth

7 Fundacio, p.203.

™ Denholm-Young, p.57.

7? Knowles, RO, I, 71.

723 PRO, E142/86/1.

74 Barnoldswick, York, Rushton and lands near Doncaster.
75 Fundacio, p.189.

7° Fundacio, p.193.

ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT 4I

4d. at Allerton and Moor Grange (Headingley) and 8d. at Elam and
Compton.

Changes in Agrarian Practice

The Cistercians had originally rejected ‘income of rent or toll from
land, mills or any form of imposition, nor were they to receive any
rents or services from dwellers on the land’.””7 Much of Kirkstall’s
holdings, however, could never have been exploited directly by the
abbey. By 1200 it was receiving grants of whole vills7* and unless
wholesale eviction took place, of which there is no evidence at this
date, the abbey must have received rent from the time that it
accepted the endowment. That this could have been money-rent is
shown from evidence from the bishop of Durham’s estates that a
monastic house was receiving money-rents as early as about 1183.7
The 1288 extent shows an annual income from rents and farms of
£74, while the value of land in demesne was £92.

Knowles suggested 1300 onwards as the approximate date when
English Cistercians were ‘gradually going over from direct
exploitation of their lands to a system of rents and leases’.*° The
only firm conclusion to be drawn from a study of the available
Kirkstall evidence is that, although in 1288 Kirkstall was dependent
on rents for a considerable part of its income, it is between 1288 and
1459 that large-scale leasing developed. In 1288 Barnoldswick is the
only grange known for certain to have been leased, and special
circumstances may have operated in this case.*' By 1459 Aldfield,
Dean Grange (Horsforth), Elam, Moor Grange, Snydale and
Wether Grange (Bramley) were certainly leased and rents. were
being collected in Allerton, Brearey, Bessacar, Burley, Darrington,
Loscoe and Rushton, at all of which places there had once been
granges. *?

Detailed evidence for the progress of leasing is not available.
Only thirteen documents are known which give such evidence and
all of these deal with small or even very small amounts of land. The
earliest is from the years 1182-92,°3 but eight of the thirteen belong

77 Knowles, MO, p.349.

ME.¢., Cookridge, EYC, VI, 251, perhaps as early as 1174.

77M. M. Postan, “The Chronology of Labour Services’, Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, 4th series, XX (1937), 177.

°° Knowles, RO, II, 126.

CB, p.330cand 1.4.

*2 The 1459 evidence is taken from ‘A Rent-Roll of Kirkstall Abbey’, pp. 1-21.

83 EYC, III, 202, which relates to the grant of a house in Pontefract to Renier of
Pontefract.

42 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

to the period of Abbots Maurice and Adam (c.1235-50), no doubt
following the relaxation by the general chapters of 1208 and 1224 of
earlier restrictions on leasing and on the acceptance of income from
rents.°4 The others date from the period 1325-35 and follow a
relaxation of restrictions on leasing by a central authority.*°

The advantage of leasing and no doubt one of the reasons for it
can be seen in a comparison of figures from the 1288 and 1459
documents:

1288 1459

a Sed. aoe
Allerton 12 16 10% 24 YO.0
Brearey LT 8". 0 [0 4250
Burley fs 135 <2
Dean ‘Grange (Le Dene) oid 8 Tek

The total value of the land recorded in 1288 was £207 9s. I1d.;
the total from rents alone in 1459 was £354 7s. 3¥%d.°*°
Some granges were leased to individuals, *’ in some cases to two
or three men,** while some were split into a number of separate
tenements.*? Practice appears to bear no relation to the size of the
grange.
If one reason for leasing granges was to increase their value,
another was clearly the difficulty in recruiting adequate and suitable
labour within the traditional system. It was during the first half of
the fourteenth century that the institution of lay-brothers virtually
disappeared. The gradual emancipation of the villein class, the
growing prosperity of the small leaseholder and peasant, the rise in
the value of the labourer’s hire, the withdrawal increasingly by the
choir-monks from manual occupations” made suitable recruitment
more difficult at a time when responsibilities were increasing. J. T.
Donnelly has noted the frequency in the thirteenth century of
disturbances among the lay-brothers in widely scattered houses.%
84]. T. Donnelly, ‘Changes in the Grange Economy of English and Welsh Cistercian
Abbeys, 1300-1540’, Traditio, X (1954), 420-23.

*1bid.,. p.420.

6 The comparison is not an exact one as the lands included in the two documents are
not precisely the same.

*7E.g., Dean Grange and Moor Grange.

*8E.g., Wether Grange and Snydale.

%2E.¢., Bat Grange, Allerton, Brearey, <tc.

Knowles, RO; 1, 77; Il; 125.

J. T. Donnelly, The Decline of the English Cistercian Lay-brotherhood, Fordham

University Studies, History Series, No.3 (1949), Appendix.

ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT 43

The Black Death must have taken its toll and in 1381 there were at
Kirkstall only sixteen monks and six lay-brothers.”

Financial Difficulties

For nearly a century from 1276 onwards the abbey faced serious
financial difficulties and surmounted a number of major crises. In
1276 the sheep farmers of England began to be seriously affected by
the incidence of murrain or scab among their sheep. This disease
was caused possibly by frequent very wet periods. By 1284
Kirkstall had no sheep.

Financial difficulties were not new to the community. In spite of
Henry de Lacy’s help at the time of the removal to Kirkstall the
abbey was in debt to Aaron of Lincoln on his death in 1186, a debt
which was remitted by Richard I for a consideration of 1,000
marks. The king had granted his protection to the house in 1261,
D265 aid. 1208,” and in 1276 the house, which is in debt . was
granted royal protection for five years and committed to the
custody of its patron, the earl of Lincoln, ‘until further orders’.°%
The abbey was again in debt to the Jews?’ and had been unable to
meet its obligations to the ‘lord Cardinal Jordan’.°* When this last
debt had not been met by the agreed date the general chapter of
1280 ordered the abbot, Gilbert de Cotles, to resign.°? In 1281
Kirkstall applied to the general chapter for permission to
disperse.”

A summary of the state of the house at the appointment of the
new abbot, Hugh Grimston, in 1284, is given in the Fundacio, as
follows:

Draught oxen 16, cows 83, yearling and young bullocks 16, asses
21, sheep none.

"VG, Yorrshire, Wil, 144; c.t., six lay-brothers at Jervaulx, three at Ricvaulx,
one at Roche, ibid., pp.144, 151, 154.

3 Fundacio, p.189.

*Memn. Fountains, SS, LX VII (1878), 18, n.4.

AGUik, 1250-00, Pp.153, 455; 1200-72, p.256.

GPR, 1272-8h,, p.170.

7 Calendar of Plea Rolls of the Exchequer of the Jews, ed. H. Jenkinson (1929), p.262.

* Canivez, III, 203. The Fundacio also refers (p.189) to difficulties ‘respecting Simon’
having been brought to an end. A certain (perhaps a papal) collector appears in
connection with English houses in a number of decisions of the general chapter at
thisitume, eye., Canivez, Ill, 33, 30, ete.

* Canivez,, lll, 203.

je Canevez, il, 212.

A4 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

debts owed without question by the acknowledgements made
before the barons of the exchequer LAAO2 20S. Tai Sic]
Scrip in the hands of the company of James of Pistokis 500 marks
Scrip “de Judaismo’ in the hands of the abbot of Fountains

500 marks
5 sacks of wool and 9 marks owed to Bernard Talde
Quittance in the hands of John Saylbes 340 marks
The sum of all the debts is £5248 158. 7d:

The new abbot acted vigorously to deal with these difficulties. 1°!
In 1287 he sought out the king in Gascony and, with the help of the
patron, laid his difficulties before him. The king protected his own
interests by ordering that the abbey should not be distrained upon
to such an extent that it would be unable to pay him his annual farm
of £90 for Bardsey and Collingham, but refused the complete
protection it asked for and entrusted the earl of Lincoln with taking
the steps necessary to save the house. “The abbot agreed to
surrender land and rents in Accrington, Cliviger and Huncoat in
Lancashire and Roundhay, Seacroft and Shadwell in Yorkshire,
together with the £4 which the house had been receiving annually
from the exchequer at Pontefract — a total annual income of
{al 7s. od. mm exchange for £53 $s. 8d. annually fromthe can, To
meet the abbey’s immediate needs the earl would loan them £350 to
pay their most pressing debts — to the Cardinal and to the Jew, Coik
of London —- which they would repay by not receiving any of the 80
marks annual payment until 1298; that is, 550 marks deferred to
repay a loan of the equivalent of 525 marks.

The effectiveness of these measures can perhaps be judged to
some extent by the state of the house at the visitation of the abbot
of Fountains in 1301:

Draught oxen 216, cows 160, yearlings and young bullocks 152,
calves 90, sheep with lambs 4, 500.
Debts £160. 1%

This clearly represents a quite remarkable recovery in less than
twenty years, especially when seen beside the quite unprecedented
demands which Edward I made upon the Church in the last decade
of the thirteenth century.'°} Kirkstall was one of the houses which

'°' This account is taken from the Fundacio, pp.189—203.

'°? Fyundacio, pp.203-04.

'°3 See F. M. Powicke, The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1953), pp.469-s509, and
H. S. Deighton, ‘Clerical Taxation by Consent’, EHR, LXVII (1953), 161-92.

ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT AS

met promptly the king’s astonishing demand in 1294 for a half of
their goods and benefices and were in return granted royal
protection for one year.'° It seems likely that Kirkstall also paid the
grant of one-third or one-fifth in July 1297.19

Royal demands continued into the next century, though on a less
extravagant scale. Edward I] demanded victuals for his Scottish
campaign and acknowledged his indebtedness to the extent of
£16 tos.‘ The monasteries were required to ‘sell’ wool to the
Crown and sometimes to wait a very long time for payment, and
also to make cash loans.

Financial aid was demanded against the Scots in 1334'° and for
the wars against the French. '°* The northern monasteries also bore
the burden of Scottish raids and levies to repel them.

It was on monasteries thus weakened by years of financial strain
that a new disaster fell. It has been estimated that at least 115 heads
of religious houses died as a result of the Black Death and that the
disease entered perhaps double that number of monasteries.'°? The
full impact was felt in Yorkshire in the summer of 1349. On 12
August of that year at Meaux the abbot and five monks died in a
single day and out of fifty monks and lay-brothers only about ten
are said to have survived.''? Comparable figures for Kirkstall are
not known, but it is perhaps significant that four abbots occur
between 1348 and 1355.

On the basis of the information provided by the Kirkstall
documents one is led to the conclusion that only in its very early
years did the economic organisation of the house conform at all
closely to the ideals of the founders of the order. It has been found
that within half a century of its foundation granges were being left
in the charge of lay-brothers, income from prohibited sources such
as tithes and rents was being accepted, and only a little later from an
advowson (c.1222). Soon afterwards the changeover from direct
cultivation to an economy of rents and leases began, and by 1288 a
considerable part of the abbey’s holdings was rented. From this
date onwards granges gradually passed into lay tenancy and the

4 CRR, 1292-1301, p.90.

'°5 Kirkstall was not among those from whom fines were received for non-payment.
CPR, 1292-1301; Deighton, p.182.

ICO R, 1307-13) p: 201.

WC CRs 1937-38, pss:

8 CPR, 1345-48, p.431.

'°9 Figures from P. G. Mode, The Influence of the Black Death on English Monasteries
(Chicago, 1918), p.18.

"°P. Ziegler, The Black Death (1969), p.183.

46 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

once distinctive institution of lay-brothers virtually disappeared. It
must be said, however, that these changes took place to a
considerable extent because of economic changes in the outside
world over which the monks had no control.

4
The Internal Life of the Monastery

It is when one tries to discuss the internal life of the monastery that
the gaps in the sources are most serious. Of the whole system of
visitation, which was such an important feature of Cistercian
organization and one which might have been expected to provide
valuable information, only one small fragment remains: a summary
of the condition of the house when visited by Abbot Thornton of
Fountains in 1301.' The contacts which must have come about
through abbatial elections are represented only by the celebrated
election at Fountains which caused the long dispute of 1410-16 at
which the abbot of Kirkstall was present as assessor.? No accounts
such as those of the bursar at Fountains} are known to survive. It is
thus only possible to gain occasional glimpses of the life of the
house.

The Monastic Community

Two firm statements of numbers are known. When the
community left Fountains to found the new house at Barnoldswick
it consisted of Abbot Alexander, twelve monks and ten lay-
brothers.* In 1381 there were sixteen monks and six lay-brothers.°
A considerable increase in numbers, especially of lay-brothers,
would be expected during the second half of the twelfth century,
but no evidence of this survives unless it is seen in the change in the
position of the refectory, possibly to accommodate a larger number
of monks.° At the Dissolution there were nineteen.’

What is probably a complete list of abbots can be compiled
(Appendix, p.95), and it is possible to say a little about their
origins. It is not surprising that, in the early appointments, the
influence of Fountains was strong. Alexander, the first abbot, had
been prior of Fountains. Ralph Haget, the second abbot, was a son

'Fundacio, pp.203—04.

?E. F. Jacob, “The Disputed Election at Fountains Abbey, 1410-16’, in Medieval
Studies presented to Rose Graham, ed. V. Ruffer and A. J. Taylor (Oxford, 1950),
Pp. 78-07.

3Mem. Fountains, SS, XLII (1863).

4Fundacio, p.174.

SVCH, Yorkshire, Ill, 144.

°Hope and Bilson, pp.s1-53.

7See below, pp.88 et seq.

48 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

of Bertram Haget, founder of Healaugh Park and a benefactor of
Fountains. He had been a knight before he became a monk of
Fountains during the abbacy of Robert (1170-79)* and became
abbot of Fountains after leaving Kirkstall about 1191.9 Lambert was
one of the original twelve sent out from Fountains'® and Turgisius
had presumably been a monk of Fountains for the writer of the
Fundacio to speak of his ‘returning to Fountains’ after his nine years
as abbot of Kirkstall.’ Helias, the fifth abbot, had been a monk of
Roche, but the Fountains influence was maintained with the
appointment, about 1209, of Ralph of Newcastle, formerly a monk
of that house and a close associate of abbot Ralph Haget. '”

A number of abbots were members of local families. Hugh de
Grimston and John de Bridesale,'} who had both been monks of
Kirkstall before becoming abbot, were almost certainly connected
with local families of some importance and linked by marriage."
The de Bridesale, or Birdsall, family had been lords of the manor of
Clifford at least since 1166 and were benefactors of the abbey.’
John de Bridesale accompanied Hugh de Grimston on his journey
to Edward I in Gascony in 1287.'° During Hugh’s abbacy, in 1294,
a Thomas de Bridesale was instituted to the living of Bracewell on
the presentation of the abbot and convent’? and in 1313, during
John’s abbacy, a William de Bridesale granted land in Bramley to
the abbey, having obtained leave to alienate in mortmain.™ It is
probable that Robert Killingbeck, who was abbot between 1499
and 1501, was connected with a local family, first tenants of the
abbey and after the Dissolution owners of some of its land.'9
William de Stapleton (c.1414-15) also bears the name of a local
family. William Marshall, the last abbot but one, in whose period
the tower was raised, was the brother of Christopher Marshall of
the Potter Newton family of that name.*°

SC. T. Clay, ‘The Early Abbots of Yorkshire Cistercian Houses’, Yorkshire
Archaeological Journal, XX XVII (1952), 19, n.5.

°Fundacio, p.183.

'° Thid.

'' Fundacio, p.186.

“Mem, Fountains, SS, XU, 123.

*CB, p:27; Fundacio, p. 180.

“CB, pps 7=338:

(Gon ee oe

'° Fundacio, p.189.

'7 Reg. Romeyn, I.

'SCPR, 1307-13, p.592.

'9For a list of references to the Killingbeck family, see W. Levison, ‘A Manuscript of
Geoffrey Monmouth and Henry Huntingdon’, EHR, LVIII (1943), 49, n.3.

0*Testamenta Leodiensia’ [1496-1624], ed. W. Brigg, PTh.S, IV (1893), 146.

THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE MONASTERY 49

Only in a few cases can anything be said of the personality of
any of the abbots. Ralph Haget is described as ‘a man of piety
and noteworthy for all holiness’.*’ Two incidents from his life
are recounted by Professor Knowles and described as ‘worthy of
as place im the record of English) (spintuality’.2* He -seems,
however, to have been inexperienced in administration and his
period of office was one of considerable difficulty. Henry II
seized the grange of Micklethwaite and the abbey was so
impoverished that it even dispersed for a time.”

Lambert had been forty years a monk before his election as
abbot.** He had to face the loss of Cliviger andthe violent attack
on the grange at Accrington which the abbey had received in
exchange.?5 His successor, Turgisius, was a man of very ascetic
habits who, it is said, could never celebrate mass without tears
‘and so great was the flood of them that he seemed less to weep
them than to pour them down like rain’.2° Abbot Helias began
his abbacy in an unfortunate way for Robert de Lacy ‘albeit
patron of the monastery, being ill-advised by certain men,
conceived so great a dislike to the said abbot that he did not
deign even to set eyes on the man, or to allow him into his
presence’.*”? Afterwards the two men became close friends and
together secured the return of the grange of Micklethwaite from
King John.**

There are several examples of serious indiscipline in the history
of the house. Adam, the grangarius, and Walter, keeper of the
ploughs, lay-brothers at the grange of Micklethwaite, were
charged with the murder of Adam, :the forester of ‘Clifford:
The date of this incident is unknown.

The record of the general chapter for the year 1280 refers to
‘the rebellion of the monks of Kirkstall against their father of
Fountains ... and the conspiracy which has grown up among
them’.2° The discontent may have been connected with the
deposition in that year by the general chapter of Abbot Gilbert
de Cotles for failing to pay certain money due to Cardinal

*! Fundacio, p.181.
Knowles, MO, pp.357—-58.
*3 Fyndacio, pp. 182-83.

4 Fyundacio, p.184.

23 [hid.

27 Thid.

8 Fundacio, p.187.

*? Gib, pe22:.

°Canivez, III, 200.

$0 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

Jordan, ‘a special friend of the order’,*! or it may have had its roots in
the serious economic difficulties the house was facing at this time.??

At least one abbot was involved, with some of his monks, in acts
of serious indiscipline. In 1356 Abbot John, probably John Top-
cliffe, seems to have organised some of the members of his commu-
nity — five monks and a lay-brother — and four laymen into a gang to
terrorize the neighbourhood. Thomas Sergaunt’s house at Thorpe,
near Knaresborough, was besieged, Thomas was imprisoned at
Wetherby, his house and property damaged and goods stolen.+3 In
1366, either in the same abbot’s time, or in that of his successor,
John de Thornberg, the vicar of Sandal, the archbishop’s official, was
attacked by the abbot, a lay-brother and two widows and the vicar’s
servant was killed. The purpose of the attack was to prevent the
citation of Margaret, widow of Robert de Baghill, ‘notoriously
defamed of many grave delinquencies’ to appear before the arch-
bishop.3+ There were complaints by St Leonard’s Hospital, York,
of attacks by Abbot John and a party of about twelve laymen
on their property and servants in several parts of Yorkshire,?> and
by John of Gaunt?® of damage to his property at Tickhill, Ponte-
fract and Knaresborough. Even when allowance has been made for
the vigour with which such charges were pressed in medieval times,
the spiritual discipline of the house, which in 1381 numbered
only twenty-three, must at this time have been at a very low level.

A second example of the deposition of an abbot by the general
chapter occurred in 1432 or 1433 when the resignation of Abbot
John de Colyngham was required by visitors appointed by the
general chapter and including the abbot of Clairvaux.3’

Of the recruitment of monks little can be said. If their names are
any guide they came from such places as Leeds,3* Otley,3? Brace-
well*#? and York.*' Sons of benefactors were sometimes received
into the community. The examination of monks, including

1° ibid., pp. 185, 203.

32See above, pp.43-44.

3CPR, 1354-59, p.498.

4 CPR, 1364-67, p. 362; 1370-74, p.158.

ISCPR, 1377-81, p.95. St Leonard’s held land adjoining that of Kirkstall at
Bramhope. Relations between the two houses were never good. See below,
pp. 75-76.

9CPR, 1377-81, p.357.

TCanivez, IV, 388:

CB, pra:
CPR, 1354-58, p.498.
4° Thid.

4" Reg. Giffard, I, 97.
CB pies.

THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE MONASTERY Syl

the future abbot, Hugh Grimston, probably before their ordination as
priests, is seen in the register of Archbishop Giffard in 1274.#

Of the details of the organization and administration of the
monastery, records are again scarce. The obedientary system was by
no means as highly developed among the white monks as among the
black, and there are references in the records of Kirkstall only to prior
and cellarer.#

The chapter, which in the first generation of the Cistercians had
been primarily ‘an assembly for spiritual conference’4’ was, at
Kirkstall, in comparatively early times consulted on questions
involving payments of money and transfers of land. The tithe
agreement with Holy Trinity, York, about land within the parish of
Leeds was drawn up ‘with the consent of both chapters’4° anda charter
of Abbot Ralph, of about 1182-90,” granting a messuage in
Pontefract 1s witnessed ‘by the whole community’. By the middle of
the next century the endowments of the abbot would seem to have
become separate from those of the community, for in 1252 Abbot
Adam, before the whole chapter as witnesses, granted rents to his
prior and convent.**

The abbot had had his own rooms in the monastery for some years
before this. The architectural evidence would place the building of the
abbot’s lodgings at about 1230, much earlier than any similar
buildings in other Cistercian houses.*? The abbot’s roomis referred to
in a document dated 1336 when Miles de la Haye did homage to the
abbot of Fountains for land in Hunslet ‘in the abbot of Kirkstall’s
private room’.°°

Other pointers toa less strict observance of the ruleemerge from the
architectural evidence. The aisles of the infirmary hall would seem to
have been converted for use as private rooms during the fourteenth
century.*’ The hearths of two of them are still very clearly visible. In
the fifteenth century alterations were made to the refectory to make
possible the construction of a misericord and meat kitchen. The old
refectory was divided into two stories, the upper of which was used as
a.refectory and the ground floor as the misericord. *

4 Reg. Giffard.

OVER oer os

45 Knowles, MO, p.637.

4° Bodleian Library, MS Charters, Yorkshire, No.4.
47 Ibid., No.5.

8 Thid., No.9.

#9 Hope and Bilson.

SB, pad.

‘' Hope and Bilson, p.4r.

[bid., p.48.

§2 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

There is an interesting reference to the services of the monastery
in a letter which Abbot John de Bridesale sent from Dover while on
a journey to the continent partly on the king’s business, but also
perhaps on his way to the general chapter.*3 He asks that Richard
Ekerlays should prepare to preach on Christmas Day, ‘unless we
return before that time, so that that great festival may not pass
without a sermon, which has never happened, nor by the grace of
God shall ever occur in the future’.5t Henry de Lacy made grants
from his farm of Clitheroe of one mark towards the abbot’s
vestments*’ and of half a mark for a light to burn before the altar. °°
The community was in possession of a gold chalice by the time of
the second abbot, when it was given to Henry II in an attempt to
recover the grange of Micklethwaite. 7

Unlike the black monks it was not usual for the white monks, at
least in their early years, to vary their diet on feast days, but at the
institution of Michael de Torrenton to Bracewell, about 1229, one
mark was reserved to the abbot for a pittance every feast day of the
Purification. **

The world outside the monastery intruded in a number of ways.
From 1305 to about 1440 there were always one or two, but not
more, persons appointed by the king to corrodies within the
abbey.°? They were usually men who had retired from minor
positions in the royal household. The corrodians of Kirkstall were
always men, but women were sent to the abbey’s dependent priory
at Burstall.°° Two old men would not seem to be a heavy burden
ona house, but there might also have been corrodians appointed by
the founder’s family or by benefactors.°' Between 1352 and 1362
the abbot petitioned the king® that his house should not be so
burdened, but this request may have been part of the campaign
carried on, almost, it seems, as a matter of course, by many
monasteries to avoid having to receive corrodians.°} It may,

‘3This could have been in 1312, when the abbot was granted royal protection,
perhaps to attend the general chapter, see below, p.77.

‘4 Fundacio, p.207.

CB, psa.

NCIS ER Cre

‘7 Fundacio, p.183.

58 Reg. Gray, p.33-

’°On royal corrodies, see S. Wood, English Monasteries and their Patrons in the
Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1955), pp.90-92, IO7—-II.

° CPR, 1441-46, p.446.

*E.g., at Vaudey, VCH, Lincolnshire, Il, ed. W. Page (1906), p.143.

° CB, pp.289-90.

°}Wood, English Monasteries and their Patrons, p.109.

THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE MONASTERY $3

however, reflect the economic difficulties of the house following
the Black Death and the king’s financial demands in connection
with the French wars.°4 Whatever the reason, the petition met with
no success.

Other less innocent people might also be found within the
monastery walls. In 1426 the sheriff of York sent instructions to
Walter de Calverley and others to attach certain men ‘dwelling with
the abbot of Kirkstall to find sufficient surety at the next sessions
for keeping the peace against the king and John William of
Spofforth’.°°

In 1314 Archbishop Greenfield recalled to his own court from
consideration by the archdeacon a charge that the abbey was
admitting parishioners of the parish of Leeds to sacraments in the
chapel above the gatehouse, and others to burial within the abbey
grounds.® The conclusion does not appear. It was not unusual for
the abbey to allow benefactors to be buried within the monastery
bounds, but whether in the church or in the grounds is not clear.”

Under a provision by Abbot Robert of Fountains in 1401, as
father abbot of Kirkstall, women were to be allowed into the
church of Kirkstall, but were on no account to be allowed to visit
other parts of the monastery, even if they were invited by the
abbot. This concession applied only to certain days, not specified.°*

Intellectual Activities

Kirkstall produced no scholars of the stature of Ailred of Rievaulx
or the chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall. Hugh, one of the early
members of the community wrote, in 1205-06, an account of the
origins of Fountains® and was probably also the author of the first
part of the Fundacio Abbathie de Kyrkestall to which numerous
references have already been made. Hugh was professed by Abbot
Ralph Haget in c.1183-84 and claimed to have obtained his

% See above, p-45.

°5 Calverley Charters, p.241.

°° Reg. Greenfield, II, 177.

°7 Reg. Romeyn, I, 14, William of Guiseley buried at Kirkstall; CB, p.193, Henry of
Elland; Dugdale, MA, V, 532, Robert de Lacy.

British Library, Cart. Cott. MSS, IV, 39, printed in Mem. Fountains, SS, XLII
(1863), 205-06.

6 Printed in full in Mem. Fountains, SS, XLII (1863), 1-128.

54 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

information on the early years of Fountains from Serlo, who had
been one of the group of monks who migrated from St Mary’s,
York, to found the abbey of Fountains. He had also been one of the
original group of twelve, who with Abbot Alexander had set out in
1147 to found at Barnoldswick the house which was to become
Kirkstall Abbey. In an analysis of the Fountains narzative L. G. D.
Baker considerably reduces Hugh’s original contribution and
shows parallels with similar writings which suggest that Hugh was
writing in accordance with an accepted tradition rather than
writing an objective history of the abbey.”

The document now known as the Fundacio is clearly a composite
document only the first part of which, ending at about 1210, is in
narrative form. This may also be the work of Hugh, but this is not
certain. It is the most important source for the early history of the
abbey.

A later section of the Fundacio includes a long letter by Abbot
Hugh de Grimston written to the community in 1287 from
Gascony when he had gone to seek the help of Edward I in the
serious financial difficulties which the abbey was facing at this time.
Much detail of the arrangements 1s given, and letters from the king
to his treasurer, the bishop of Ely and.to>the barons»of the
Exchequer are included.

The two chronicles which bear the name of the house cannot
with absolute certainty be assigned to it.7' The ‘Long Chronicle’,”
written about 1370-76, is in the same handwriting as the
manuscript of the Fundacio. It deals entirely with events outside the
house and reflects little credit upon the scholarship of the house at
the time when it was written. “The manuscript is the work of a
scribe who could not read what he was copying or who did not
understand fully what was said.’?3

The ‘Short Chronicle’,”* completed about 1400, is ascribed to
Kirkstall on the basis of a note by Dodsworth on his transcription
of part of it. It shows a sympathy with Richard II which is
surprising in a house with such strong Lancastrian connections.’°

7L. G. D. Baker, “The Foundation of Fountains Abbey’, Northern History, IV
(1969), 29-43.

™ The Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, ed. J. Taylor (PTh.S, XLII, 1952), with a preface
which describes the literary remains of the house.

? Bodleian Library, Laud MSS, Miscellaneous 722.

73M. V. Clarke and N. Denholm-Young, “The Kirkstall Chronicle, 1355-1400’,
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, XV (1931), 100-37.

7*Dodsworth, CXL, but formerly part of the Laud volume.

7’ The Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, p.46.

THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE MONASTERY $$

A number of original charters have survived”? and also the
Coucher Book. The compilation of the latter appears to have
begun in the early thirteenth century. The documents were
grouped by areas beginning with those relating to Kirkstall and
Headingley and moving out towards the more distant estates.
After the finst compilation other documents were added and
placed as closely as possible to those relating to the same area,
even if this s«metimes meant placing them at the end of the
section before. To the front of the collection was added a series
of fines inserted in date order and running from 1192 to 1246,
and after the charters a series of compositions as to tithe made
between Kirkstall and the rectors of the parishes in which the
abbey held land. Finally there is a series of inquisitions and court
proceedings in which the abbey had been involved.

One of what must have been a series of rent-rolls survived and
has been printed.”” The original cannot now be traced.

The library of the abbey was housed in the small book-room
next to the chapter-house on the east side of the cloister, with a
press in the cloister itself.

Of its contents little can be said. Only eight manuscripts are
known to survive. The manuscripts of which details are
available”* are mainly collections of short works on spiritual
topics. A volume which begins with ‘A tract concerning the
spiritual eye’ is in the library of Jesus College, Cambridge,” and
an entry on the first folio shows it to have been the gift of John
Driffield, a monk of the house, on Ascension Day, 1344.*° In the
library of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge,*! is a fourteenth-
century volume beginning with a collection of the sayings of
Augustine and Aristotle. It also includes other short works by
Augustine and the book of the deeds of Barlaam and Josaphat
from a Greek sermon by John the Damascene, ‘a holy and
learned man’. This book was the gift of John Stamborn, also a

7The most important manuscript collections are the Watson collection, Bodleian
Library, MS Top., Yorkshire, e.2; Bodleian Library, MS Charters, Yorkshire,
a.I, of which nos. 1-27 relate to Kirkstall; the Allerton charters in the possession
of the city of Leeds and printed in PTh.S, IV (1895); British Library, Add. MSS
17121 relating to the abbey’s holdings in Horsforth, and 27413 relating to
Bramhope.

PT haS, MM (1891), 1:

™ The Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, pp.37-40.

77 Cambridge, Jesus College, 75 (M. R. James, Catalogue of Manuscripts . . . (1895)).

8° William de Driffield was abbot at this time. See Appendix, p.95 below.

*' Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, 85 (M. R. James, Catalogue of Manuscripts . . .
(1895)).

56 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

monk of the house, but it had been the property of Simon de
Gowshill, a canon of the Gilbertine house of Chicksand in
Bedfordshire.

There are several Kirkstall volumes in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford. The ‘Vocabularium ordine alphabetico of Huguccio of
Pisa’®? has a note on the fly-leaf which clearly associates it with
Kirkstall Abbey. Laud misc. 216, of the twelfth century, includes
an exposition by Bede of the Proverbs of Solomon and a collection
of sentences from the early Christian fathers. In another twelfth-
century volume*} Smaragdus ‘compiled a small book concerning
various virtues’ and gave.it the name “Diadema monachorum’.
There is also a volume from the fifteenth century™ which includes a
Life of St Germanus.

There is a twelfth-century manuscript volume in the library of
the University of Li¢ge which includes a work by Eutropius.*
The abbey library also appears to have contained a copy of the
Chronicles of Geoffrey of Hoyland.*°

There is a printed book by P. Crinitus, dated Paris 1508, in the
library. of Corpus Christi College, Oxtford.*” It was the ciftsor
Christopher de Heddyngley, but it is not known whether he was a
member of the community.

It has been suggested that a manuscript now at St Cuthbert’s
College, Ushaw, near Durham, and containing the Historia
Regum Brittaniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth and part of
Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum may also have been in
the Kirkstall library, but the evidence is inconclusive.** Among
the books of Henry Savile of Banke was a volume containing
a miscellaneous collection of theological works and inscribed
‘ex dono Thomas Foxcroft de Christall’.*? Savile is) knowineto
have acquired books from the northern abbeys, especially from
Fountams,» Byland and “Rievaul<> “and muci “ef Mthic

*? Bodleian Library, Laud MSS, Miscellaneous 722.

‘3 Bodleian Library, Mus. 195.

‘4 Bodleian Library, Laud MSS, Lat. 69, noted in N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of
Great Britain, 2nd edn (1964), p.107.

Ss Liege, University Library, 369C, also noted in Ker, Medieval Libraries.

’°C. R. Cheney, ‘Les Bibliothéques Cisterciennes en Angleterre au XIle Siecle’, in
Mélanges S. Bernard, XXIV Congrés de l’Association Bourguignonne des
Sociétés Savantes (Dijon, 1953).

"Ket, pp 107.272,

SW. Levison, ‘A Manuscript of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Henry of Hunting-
don’, pp.49—-50.

‘J. P. Gilson, ‘The Library of Henry Savile of Banke’, Transactions of the
Bibliographical Society, IX (1906-08), 176.

Nido gD lgie

THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE MONASTERY S7

abbey land passed into the hands of Robert Savile after the
Dissolution.?'

In 1400 Kirkstall was ordered to pay 40s. each year, until the
work was complete, towards the cost of rebuilding Rewley Abbey,
the Cistercian studium at Oxford until St Bernard’s College was
founded in 1437.9? One Kirkstall monk is known at Oxford. In
1433 the general chapter decided that Willelmus Gason, priest, of
Kirkstall, had worked so well and brought such credit to his house
and his order that he must remain to take his doctorate in
Theology. The abbot was forbidden to remove him on pain of
excommunication. %

The Abbey Buildings
The architecture of the church and the conventual buildings was
studied very fully by two specialists, St John Hope and John
Bilson, and a detailed account was published in 1907.% It will not,
therefore, be necessary here to cover the ground again. An attempt
will be made, however, to place the buildings in the context of
other early Cistercian buildings, to draw attention to their
distinctive features, and to refer to relevant contributions to their
study which have appeared since the work of Hope and Bilson was
published. 9°

The ruins of Kirkstall Abbey are among the most extensive and
best preserved of the English Cistercian houses. They mark a clear
stage in the development of Cistercian architecture away from its
Burgundian, or possibly northern French, exemplars; they show an
important development towards Gothic building in the way the
aisles and presbytery are vaulted, and they mark a stage in the
gradual abondonment of the strictest injunctions of the order
against decorative features.”

The main structure of the monastery was built during the period
of the first abbot, 1152—85.97 The buildings were erected more
quickly than was sometimes the case with Cistercian houses,”

See below, p.92.

?R. C. Fowler, “Cistercian Scholars at Oxford’, EHR, XXIII (1908), 84.

% Canivez, IV, 386-87. I have been unable to trace this man further.

°* Hope and Bilson.

°° The reports on the excavations of 1950—64 include detailed investigations of parts
of the buildings, Kirkstall Abbey Excavations, 1950-54; 1955-59 (PTh.S, XLVIII,
1961); 1960-64.

°T. S. R. Boase, English Art, 1100-1216 (Oxford, 1953), pp.135-37.

7 Fundacio, p.181.

%M. Aubert, L’architecture Cistercienne de France (Paris, 1947), I, 101.

$8 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

possibly due to the support given by Henry de Lacy.” The stone, a
sandstone known as Bramley Fall stone, was brought from quarries
across the river and landed at a wooden Jetty of which remains were
found by the excavators,’ together with many large blocks of
stone which may have fallen during unloading. The stone 1s
coarse-grained and extremely hard, which accounts for the
bluntness in the rendering of the finer details in the sculpture,
especially noticeable in the capitals. We are told, however, that
Abbot Alexander diligently guarded the abbey’s own woodlands
and brought the timber for building from elsewhere. '®!

The earliest Cistercian churches in England, those at Waverley
and Tintern, are generally agreed to owe their plan to St Bernard’s
church at Clairvaux. They have a short nave and a square-ended
presbytery, in contrast to the multi-apsidal east ends common in
the later churches. They are both without aisles and have transepts
with two or three chapels on their eastern wall. At Rievaulx,
founded in 1132, the nave was considerably lengthened and aisles
and a western narthex added. Anglo-Norman features can first be
seen at Fountains (begun 1135). The pointed arches, transverse
barrel vault and arcaded narthex remained, but the crossing was
marked by a low tower, cylindrical piers replaced the Burgundian
square piers of Rievaulx, and Anglo-Norman decorative motifs
were introduced.

It is to be expected that, given the close architectural uniformity
of Cistercian houses and the proximity and importance of its
mother-house, Kirkstall would be strongly influenced by the
buildings at Fountains. It does, however, have its own important
and distinctive features which possibly mark the development of
church architecture during the fifteen years which separate the
erection of the two churches.

In spite of the presence of pointed arches all the churches so far
mentioned place ‘more reliance in thickness of wall than in
projection of buttresses’'* and therefore cannot be described as
Gothic buildings. It was for Roche (c.1170) and Byland (c.1175) to
introduce distinctive Gothic features. Kirkstall, however, took an
important step towards Gothic practice in its use of semi-circular
diagonal ribs with pointed and stilted transverse ribs in the vaulting
of the aisles and of the presbytery. This marks an advance both on
the use of the transverse barrel vault in the aisles at Fountains and

° Fundacio, pp.179-80.

'°° Kirkstall Abbey Excavations, 1955-59, p.57.-

'°! Fyundacio, pp.179-80.

'2 EF. Bond, Gothic Architecture in England (1905), p.43.

THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE MONASTERY $9

on the use of segmental diagonal ribs in most Anglo-Norman
buildings. A similar development was taking place in the Ile de
France, but it is the view of both Bilson and Bony'™ that Kirkstall’s
practice owes nothing to French influence. The Kirkstall vaults
have been described as ‘the very earliest examples in England of the
complete solution of the Gothic problem as far as the vaulting itself
is concerned’ .'4

The building of the church at Kirkstall coincided with the birth
of ‘a vigorous new school of sculpture . . . in Yorkshire’.'°S This
may have had the effect of helping to break down the early
Cistercian opposition to decoration and of producing a much freer
use of ornament at Kirkstall than had been usual in Cistercian
churches before that date.'°° Kirkstall has composite piers made up
of as many as twelve engaged columns; its capitals show a wide
range of scallop patterns with occasional interlacing designs and
include a revival of Anglo-Norman motifs.'°? Foliage capitals can
be seen in the north transept; chevron designs are found in the west
and north doorways and the latter has an unusual “Greek-key’
pattern. It should be noted, however, that all the Kirkstall sculpture
is purely decorative and that nowhere are figures or animals
represented as in much contemporary work elsewhere in
Yorkshire. Not even the popular ‘beak-head’ motif appears at
Kirkseall.(°

One of the most impressive buildings remaining, apart from the
church, is the chapter-house, and this also is distinctive. ‘In the
Cistercian houses of the north a different type of rectangular
chapter-house was developed having vaulting piers dividing it into
three circles and preceded by a shallow vestibule one bay deep over
which a passage led from the dormitory to the night stairs in the
transept.’?°? This was true of Fountains, Furness and Jervaulx, but
not of Kirkstall. Here the vestibule is of equal size with the
chapter-house proper and passes under the whole width of the
dormitory above, while the vaulting in the chapter-house spans the
whole room.

'°3 Hope and Bilson, p.239; J. Bony, ‘French Influence on the Origins of English
Gothic Architecture’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XII (1949), 3.

*“* Hope and Bilson, p.236.

'°SG. Zarnecki, Later English Romanesque Sculpture, 1140-1210 (1953), p.34-.

‘°° A number of writers have drawn attention to this. Hope and Bilson, p.127;
G. Webb, Architecture in Britain: the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1956), p.47;
Boase, p.36.

'°7 Webb, p.47.

Se 7asneckisip.37.

'°9 Webb, p.60.

60 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

The early Cistercian houses built their refectories, in accordance
with traditional Benedictine practice, on the south side of the cloister
and parallel to it. Fountains, Furness, Melrose and Newmuinster are
examples. In the late twelfth century'’® the refectory at Kirkstall was
altered so that its long axis was perpendicular to the south cloister.
This occurred ina number of houses and 1s perhaps related to the rapid
numerical expansion of the order during this period. A refectory inthe
north-south position could be extended to the limits of available
ground. The rebuilt refectory was almost as large as that of the largest
northern houses. A second alteration to the refectory took place
when, following the relaxation by Benedict XI] 1n 1335 of rules about
eating meat, the refectory was divided into two stories to provide a
misericord on the ground floor."'' At the same time a new meat
kitchen was built to the south-east. '!

The constitution of the Cistercian order required that the abbot
should ‘lie in the dorter’ and ‘eat in the guest-house’. Kirkstall was one
of the earliest houses to provide separate accommodation for its
abbot, perhaps in 1230. It was a three-storied building, the ground
floor perhaps serving as servants’ quarters, withthe principal room on
the first floor approached by a stone staircase. Another relaxation of
the strict rule of the order can be seen in the division of the infirmary
into private chambers, possibly soon after 1300. The fire-places can
still be seen in the aisles.‘

The last century of the life of the English Cistercian monasteries
saw considerable building activity. Whalley built a great new
gate-house in 1480. Under its last abbot anew abbot’s house was built
and the lady chapel reconstructed. The tower at Fountains was built
under Abbot Huby (1494-1526). Furness also began a large tower but
never finished it. Cleeve built a new frater and, most magnificent of
all, Forde, from about 1520 onwards, builtits great new abbot’s house
and gatehouse. If Kirkstall could not equal this magnificence it at least
had its share in the wave of new building. During the fifteenth century
considerable alterations were carried out to the church. The roof was
lowered, the gables remodelled and the great east window of the
presbytery inserted as well as new windows in the nave and transepts.
Under Abbot William Marshall (1509-27) the tower was raised in
height to accommodate a belfry.

'10'The date was confirmed by the excavators, Kirkstall Abbey Excavations, 1955-59,
pp. x1, 9:

“Tbid: Pp: 5, 9:

"2 Ibid., pp.29-30; and for the adjoining buildings, ibid., pp.31-34, 60-62, 79-82.

"3 For the excavations in the infirmary area, see Kirkstall Abbey Excavations,
1955-59, pp. 113-24; 1960-64, pp. 33-36.

External Relations

It was part of the whole purpose and raison d’étre of the Cistercian
order that the life of its communities should be lived apart from the
world. Its houses were built remote from the habitations of men,
and its statutes, drawn up at a time when the Church’s reaction
against lay control was at its height, were intended to provide for
self-sufficient communities whose dependence on the outside
world was reduced to an absolute minimum, ideally only
dependence on the bishop for orders. It will be the purpose of this
chapter to discover in what ways a Cistercian house, and Kirkstall
in particular, was nevertheless brought into contact with the world
outside its walls and, where possible, to establish what were the
effects of those contacts upon the life of the community.

Relations with the King

While the great houses of the Benedictine order held their lands by
military service or were tenants-in-chief of the king, the Cistercian
houses almost invariably held land in frankalmoin' and were thus
spared a great deal of the involvement in secular affairs which
military tenure brought with it. Furthermore, in contrast to the
Benedictines, or the Austin Canons, the king was involved in the
foundation of few Cistercian houses.” In Cistercian houses he was
therefore not in a position to exercise such rights as custody during
vacancy or assent in abbatial elections. An unscrupulous king could
and did seize Cistercian property and make heavy financial
demands on Cistercian houses. Even in more normal times
hospitality for royal servants might be demanded but the king
might also provide protection and encouragement in times of
difficulty.

The monks of Kirkstall first learned how heavy the king’s hand
might be in the reign of Henry II. Shortly after the monks had
established themselves at Kirkstall they had been granted land at
Bardsey and Collingham by Herbert de Moreville, who held land
there of Roger de Mowbray. On this land the monks had
established their grange of Micklethwaite which quickly became a

‘For details of the implications of frankalmoin tenure, see above, pp.23-24.
Two only: Beaulieu was founded by John in 1204 and Henry III shared with Peter
des Roches, bishop of Winchester, in the foundation of Netley in 1239.

62 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

valuable part of their endowment. After the revolt of 1173-74 the
whole of the Bardsey and Collingham land was taken into the
king’s hands and the grange confiscated. The loss of Micklethwaite
was a severe blow to the monks and even caused a temporary
dispersion, though the writer of the Fundacio admits that this took
place chiefly in order to persuade the king to restore the land.} In
spite of this and of Abbot Ralph’s offers of presents of a gold chalice
and a text of the gospels, Henry II would not restore the land to the
monks.

It is difficult to account for the king’s determined antagonism
towards the abbey in this matter. It was unusual for the king to
seize. lands» @ranted to a religious. house, ands Henry [bad
specifically confirmed the grant and taken the house under his
protection. Roger de Mowbray had been implicated in the
rebellion and possibly also Richard de Moreville. The editor of the
Coucher Book suggests> that active sympathy with de Moreville on
the part of the abbot might have provided the special reason for the
king’s displeasure. The writer of the Fundacio says that the king’s
action was taken in order to spite Roger de Mowbray.°®

It was John who eventually restored the grange to the monks,
through the efforts of Abbot Helias and Roger de Lacy.’ John
would only agree, however, on condition that the abbot took the
whole Bardsey and Collingham fee at an annual rent of £90.° The
abbey accepted these conditions, and the land remained with them
until the Dissolution. The disposal of this rent caused more
communications between the king and the monastery than any
other subject except the statute of mortmain. The abbot was often
instructed to pay it direct to someone named by the king and it was
so used, for example, to support John’s foundation of Beaulieu.°®

John is remembered, however, more for his demands on the
Cistercians than for his grants to them.’® From the exactions of
1210 it has been said"! that only two foundations — Beaulieu and
Margam — escaped, so it 1s likely that Kirkstall suffered. The writer

3Fundacio, p.183.

‘Herbert de Moreville’s grant is included by name in Henry II’s charter of
confirmation, CB, p.214. For Henry’s grant of protection, see CB, p.215.

*CB, ps278.

°Fundacio, p.182.

7Fundacio, pp.184-85.

‘CB, pp.218-19.

CCK 1227-31 ap.7 3.

'John’s relations with the Cistercians are described in detail in Knowles, MO,
pp. 366-70.

"Knowles, MO, p.368.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS 63

of the Fundacio blames John for the loss of the grange at Hooton
Pagnell,'* but the Coucher Book includes the fine by which Abbot
Helias relinquished all interest in Hooton Pagnell in return for
recognition of the abbey’s rights in Adel." It was nearly a century
before Kirkstall again suffered severely from royal demands."4

There were, however, other and less onerous ways in which the
king might require money or services of the abbey. In 1304, after
the surrender of Stirling Castle, Kirkstall was ordered to provide
four horses, a cart and two men to help carry Edward I’s treasure
from York back to Westminster; in 1310 Kirkstall, with other
houses, was ordered to provide victuals for Edward II’s Scottish
campaign. Once again, in 1349, transport was needed to help move
the chancery rolls in Westminster and a suitable horse was found at
Kirkstall. In 1332 Edward III asked for a subsidy to help defray the
cost of his sister Eleanor’s marriage to Reginald, count of
Flanders-Geulders,'> and in 1430 Henry VI demanded £10 towards
the repayment of a loan by the city of London.”

The king also expected monasteries to provide lodging for
retired royal servants. There were always one or two, but never
more than two, royal corrodians at Kirkstall from 1305 to about
1433.'7 They were, it seems, usually men who had occupied minor
positions in the royal household.

The third way in which the king was brought into contact with
the abbey was through actions in the courts or through the
departments of state. The most numerous came about as a
consequence of the passing of the statute of mortmain. Between
1306 and 1410 twenty-eight licences to alienate into mortmain are
known to have been issued to Kirkstall, concerning altogether
sixty-five different pieces of land, rent or, in one case, the
appropriation of the church of Bracewell."

Three examples are recorded of the grant of pardon by the king
in cases in which the abbot or the convent was concerned. In 1371
the king pardoned Stephen, a lay-brother, for having killed the
wicar- ot Sandal’s“servant and wounded the vicar himself, The
incident referred to is presumably that in 1366 in which Abbot John
Topcliffe was implicated."

'? Fyundacio, p.187.

"CB. -pp.9=10.

'4See above, pp.44-45.

CCR, 1302-07, p.2245°1307-13, Pp. 201; 1349-54, pp.34, $4; 1330-33, p.587-
'°CPR, 1429-36, p.62.

“Ror the abbots protest, see CB, p.280.

'SCPR, passim. For reference to the church at Bracewell, see CPR, 1345-48, p.431.
'9CPR, 1370-74, p.158; 1364-67, pp. 362-63.

64 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

The other two cases involve men who were opposed to the
abbot. In 1391 the king pardoned Thomas de Rothelay for failing to
answer a charge of trespass and in 1393 three men were pardoned
who had released from the stocks one, John Bull, who had stolen
from the abbot twenty-nine sheep valued at 28s.”°

Two long disputes between the king and the abbey occupy many
pages in the Coucher Book and are also described in detail in the
Patent Rolls.*! The king was brought into the first of these by his
resumption of the Blackburnshire lands after the attainder of
Thomas, earl of Lancaster, in 1322, to whom they had passed after
the extinction of the: maletine of the de Lacy famuly im 1310, Part
of these lands had been granted by Edward III to Queen Isabella
shortly after his accession.

The story begins with a petition from the abbot and convent to
the king to point out that Blackburnshire had been granted to the
abbey in frankalmoin, free of all earthly services, and requesting
that they should therefore be exempt from claims for puture on
these lands. The king ordered his own chief forester, Robert de
Dalton, and Queen Isabella’s steward, John Giffard, to cease
demanding puture of the abbey. John Giffard replied that puture
had been received since the time of John de Lacy, earl of Lincoln
(who died in 1240). Giffard was again ordered to stop his demands
and this time the instructions were passed to the keeper of the
queen’s lands? and presumably obeyed.

The second dispute lasted much longer and was not settled out of
court. It arose through the addition by the earl of Lincoln of 840
acres of wood, moor and pasture to his forest of Blackburnshire
just before 1300.*4 This forest came into the king’s hands with the
rest of the earl of Lancaster’s possessions in 1322 and in 1329 the
abbot, William of Driffield, petitioned for restoration of common
rights on this land.*5 His petition was opposed by the
representatives of the king and Queen Isabella. The land lay half in
Lancashire and half in Yorkshire. Proceedings in respect of the
Lancashire land were quashed, but it was not until 1335 that the
sheriff was ordered to give the abbot seisin of the land in
Yorksiire”°
“CPR, 1389-92, p.284; 1392-96, p.263.

*CB, pp.353-64, 321-39; CPR, 1327-30, p.528; 1330-34, pp:50,- 70; 330-40:

534-38.
athe descent is shown in the diagram in G.E.C., Complete Peerage, VII, 677.
“CB, p.3$4, undated. CB, pp.363, 355, 356, 357, 359:
“CB, p3326
CB ap. ane
"CB, pp-338- 39:

EXTERNAL RELATIONS 605

Relations with the king did not always operate against the
abbey’s interests, as much of this chapter might suggest. Each
king, from Henry II to Edward I, took Kirkstall under his
protection,’’ and this general protection might be renewed for a
specific period if the house were in particular difficulties. In
1276, for example, royal protection was granted for five years to
Kirkstall Abbey ‘which is in debt’.** A custodian was also
appointed, as was commonly done, even with exempt houses, in
the case of debt.*? In this case the king seems particularly to have
considered the susceptibilities of the house by appointing as
custodian the abbey’s own patron, Henry de Lacy.

Letters of protection were granted to the abbot when he went
abroad to attend meetings of the general chapter of his order?°
and in 1323 to the abbot ‘in his grange of Loftesclogh’.3’ The
reason is not known.

The king might also use his influence to encourage the abbey’s
trade. Both Henry II and Richard I granted exemption from
various tolls ‘for themselves, their animals and their goods’3? and
in 1224 Henry III ordered all his harbour-bailiffs to see that ships
carrying wool from Kirkstall and Fountains were not interfered
with, or allowed to suffer injury.*3

It is clear from the relationships described above that the
connection between the king and a Cistercian house were of a
very different kind from those which existed between the king
and a black monk abbey. Whereas the king’s relations with the
Benedictine houses were based on feudal law and custom and
were therefore of a formal kind, the king could only interfere in
the affairs of a Cistercian house by acting irregularly, as it seems
did Henry II and John in their dealings with Kirkstall, or by
pressing his: vaguely defined claim to a kind of general
patronage. The intrusion of royal corrodians into Cistercian
houses -may be regarded as an extension of this clam. The
opportunities for friction were thus much less and the resulting
situation shows that the Cistercians had to some extent achieved

M™Aenry Wi7CB, p.215; Richard || CB, p.216; johm-as Count of Mortain, CB,
pes, 4s kine, CB, p/200, Henry Hl, Diedale, MA, WV, 536.

CPR, 1272-81, p.170.

* Ibid., p.171; see also, S. Wood, English Monasteries and their Patrons in the
Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1955), p.96.

Ee Ot 202-1301, p).51.55- 1527-30, Pal.

“Presumably Woscoe, neat Pontefract, CPR, 1321-24, p.345.

* CB, ps2t0.

33 PR, 11216=25, p.4d9.

66 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

their aim of excluding lay influence from the conduct of their
affairs.

Relations with the Patron

The patron of an English monastery was normally the founder or
his heir and the endowment of a monastery was regarded very
much as the enfeoffment of a tenant. The chief right which the
patron enjoyed was the right of taking the house into his custody
during a vacancy and of licence and assent in elections. In the
Cistercian order custody during a vacancy was ruled out and the
constitution of the order expressly forbade lay interference in
abbatial elections.**

As exemplified in the surviving documents relating to Kirkstall
Abbey the patron’s particular role was in the smoothing of relations
with the outside world in temporal matters. H. M. Colvin’s
description of the patron of a Premonstratensian house will serve
well to describe the kind of relationship which emerges: ‘A patron,
in the eyes of the Church, was a person chosen by a monastic house
to protect its interests in the secular sphere and generally to use his
influence to promote its welfare and safeguard its endowments.’35

Patronage of Kirkstall Abbey remained in the de Lacy family
from the founder, Henry de Lacy, at least unl. the-=male tive
disappeared with the death of Henry de Lacy in 1310, and passed
into the hands of the dukes of Lancaster, who succeeded to the de
Lacy estates. Henry de Lacy’s part in the foundation of the house
has already been told.3° He was not a great donor of land, but he
probably persuaded others to give, he helped to smooth out the
difficulties which arose between the house and Hugh Bigod, earl of
Norfolk, by securing the intervention of the king. He also helped in
other ways. ‘Henry de Lacy stood by [Abbot Alexander], now
providing the fruits of harvest, now supplying money as the needs
of the establishment required. He had in part provided the
buildings, laid with his own hand the foundations of the church and
himself completed the whole fabric at his own cost.’3”

On Henry’s death this valuable relationship was continued
through Robert, his son. He gave land much more generously than
his father had done. Fountains and Selby received grants from him
and Kirkstall was granted Riston in Bowland, with generous

3#P. Guignard, Monuments primitifs de la regle Cistercienne (Dijon, 1878), p.82.
35H. M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford, 1951), p.291.

38 See above, pp.4, 7-11.

37 Fundacio, pp.179—-80.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS 67

pasture rights,3® all Accrington,?? land in Snydale*® and houses in
Wentbridge and Pontefract.’ Robert brought to justice the men
who had attacked and killed three lay-brothers at the grange of
Accrington during the time of Abbot Lambert.*? With Robert’s
death the direct male line of the de Lacys came to an end. The
estates passed to Aubreye, his cousin, who in 1194* granted the
honour of Pontefract to her grandson, Roger, son of John,
constable of Chester.

As was usual, when land changed hands, the patronage of any
monasteries included in it passed with it, unless expressly
excluded.#4 Roger, having overcome his personal dislike of Abbot
Helias, helped the monastery to recover the grange of Mickle-
thwaite, taken from them by Henry II.*°

In 1276, when the house was heavily in debt, it was Henry de
Lacy, earl of Lincoln, whom the king appointed as its custodian
until pressure of the king’s business made it necessary for someone
else to succeed him.*° The financial details are given above.‘ It does
not appear that Henry was ungenerous. The abbey surrendered
land and rents to an annual value of £41 7s. 9d. in return for an
annual sum from the exchequer at Pontefract of £53 6s. 8d., while
to meet their immediate needs the earl loaned 525 marks for which
550 marks would eventually be repaid.

Relations between monastery and patron did not, however,
always run smoothly. Shortly after this financial settlement the
ear, for a reason that is’ not clear, took into his forest of
Blackburnshire a large tract of the monastery’s possessions,
involving the abbey in a long and expensive law-suit with the king,
for the de Lacy land passed into the king’s hands with the attainder
of the earl of Lancaster in 1322.4° Possession of the whole was not
regained until 1340 or later.

It would be expected that the patronage of Kirkstall would pass
to the Lancaster family with the honour of Pontefract. The only
evidence that this did in fact happen is contained in a petition to the

FCB, Pstoo:

CB. p- 190:

CB, p. 140.

EGU 202:

” Fundacio, pp.184-85.

43G.E.C., Complete Peerage, v.s. Lincoln.
4 Wood, pp.12-25.

45 See above,-p.62.

4° CPR, 1272-81, p.171.

47See above, pp.43—44.

48 The law-suit is described above, p.64.

68 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

king in respect of corrodies, from a date between 1352 and 1362,
in which the abbey is described as ‘de la fundacion Henry de Lascy
iadis Seignour de Pontfrait, et du patronage Henri, Duke [sic] de
Lancastre’.°° It was through the interest of John of Gaunt, duke of
Lancaster, “that the abbey eamed its larcest accession et Tana,
Following a disastrous fire the abbey of Aumale, near Amiens, sold
its dependent priory of Burstall, in Holderness. Through negotia-
tions conducted by John of Gaunt, the priory, with all its lands and
churches, was acquired by Kirkstall for 10,000 pounds tours.>!

It is reasonable to ask what return patrons gained for themselves
for the services they petformed for the monastery. The return
expected would be mainly in the form of spiritual services — masses
for the dead members of the patron’s family’? or admission to
confraternity.°3 There is no evidence that either of these things
happened at Kirkstall, but application was made to the general
chapter of 1258 that they might celebrate each year the anniversary
of their founders.54 Members of the founder’s family were often
buried in the monastery. Of the de Lacy family, only Robert, who
died in 1193, is known to have been buried at Kirkstall.°> In many
monasteries, including several Cistercian houses, an account was
kept of events in the founder’s family, and this was sometimes
incorporated in the cartulary. The Kirkstall Coucher Book contains
an account of the constables of Chester.*°

Relations with other Cistercian Houses 3

It was lad down in the*scatutes of the ‘Cistercian <order that
mother-houses should visit their daughters annually and that the
abbot of every daughter-house should pay a return visit each year
to the mother-house.’? The ordinary life of the order would
therefore bring houses into contact with each other quite often,

GB, p.280.

‘©The document is unreliable in some respects; John’s grant of Micklethwaite is
described as being in free alms. The grant, CB, pp.218-19, is clearly at fee-farm.

s'T), Mathew, The Norman Monasteries and their English Possessions (1962), p.118. The
pound tours was worth about one-quarter of the pound sterling.

? Wood, pp. 131-35.

Sid. p12 7.

54Canivez, Il, 444.

‘sDugdale, MA, V, 534. Other members of the family were buried at their later
foundation of Stanlaw. The Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey, ed. W. A. Hutton,
Chetham Society, X (1847), 1, 180.

S°CB, pp.237-43.

‘7 Knowles, MO, p.262.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS 69

apart from the meeting of the abbots at the general chapter. One of
the most valuable sources that students of Cistercian institutions
could have would be the records of these visitations, but they are
apparently not in existence either in England, or at Citeaux.** As
far as Kirkstall is concerned the evidence that these regulations were
in fact carried out is very scanty. On only four occasions can it be
shown clearly that the abbot of Fountains was present in his
daughter-house, and only one of these was an ordinary visitation
—that of Abbot Robert Thornton in 1301.59 A similar visitation
could well have been the occasion for the business that brings the
other visits to our notice.

In 1284 Henry, abbot of Fountains, was present for the election
of Abbot Hugh Grimston.® It would appear that an ordinary
visitation was carried out on this occasion, as the condition of the
house is recorded. A chance phrase in a document in the Coucher
Book®! shows that the abbot of Fountains was at Kirkstall in 1336
when he received ‘in the abbot of Kirkstall’s private room’ the
homage of Miles de la Haye for lands at Hunslet. The last known
occasion was when Abbot John Ripon of Fountains visited
Kirkstall in 1432 in the company of the visitors from the general
chapter, the abbot of Clairvaux and the abbot of Theolocus, and
received the resignation of Abbot John de Colyngham.”

The abbot of Kirkstall’s return visit could of course have been
made without leaving any record, since no formal visitation was
involved. The abbots of the daughter-houses were required to be
present at the election of a new abbot of the mother-house. The
only such occasion when the abbot of Kirkstall is known to have
been at Fountains is the disputed election of 1411.°) Abbot
Turgisius appears as witness to a grant of land to Fountains in about
1200, but this of course did not necessarily involve his presence
there.”

That relations between the mother and daughter were not always
as good as they should have been is indicated by the appointment
by the general chapter of 1280 of the abbots of Rufford and

S$]. Richard, ‘Les Sources Bourguignonnes de l’histoire d’ Angleterre: La custodie de
Scarborough et la péche en mer du Nord au XIII™° siécle’, Moyen Age, LII
(1946), 257n.

‘9 Fundacio, pp.203—04.

°° Fundacio, pp. 188-89.

CB pom.

% Canivez, IV, 388.

Jacob, ‘The Disputed Election at Fountains’, p.8r.

SS EBYVC- IM. 340.

TO KIRKSTALL ABBEY

Rievaulx to enquire into a rebellion by the monks of Kirkstall
against their father, the abbot of Fountains, and ‘the conspiracy that
has arisen among them’.®>

The authority of the abbot of Fountains is illustrated by his
confirmation in 1401 of indulgences granted to Kirkstall by the
pope allowing the entry of women into the church on certain days,
provided that they were not Me by the abbot or the monks, to
visit other parts of the monastery.

In July 1279 the abbots of Rievaulx and Byland met at Kirkstall
to enquire into a dispute between Fountains and Salley about
boundaries.°7 Abbot Alexander and his monk, Serlo, witnessed a
grant to Rievaulx of iron smithies and ore-bearing land at Blacker,
in Upper Hoyland.

In 1228 the abbot was ordered by the king to pay to the royal
foundation of Beaulieu the £90 fee-farm from Bardsey and
Collingham.”

Relations with the Secular Church

(a) With the Diocesan

The ecclesiastical independence of a Cistercian house was as secure
as its financial independence. From almost the earliest times the
order had been under the direct protection of the papacy.”° The
diocesan bishop had no part in the election of abbots nor did he
enjoy the right of visitation.

The archbishop of York, as Kirkstall’s diocesan, did, however,
enjoy the abbey’s hospitality on a number of occasions. On his first
visitation of the diocese he was entitled to claim it. Such a visit was
made after due notice had been given. Thomas Corbridge
(archbishop 1300-04) gave notice of his intended visit on 31 May
1301 and arrived at the abbey on 20 June of the same year.7!
William Greenfield (1306-15) gave notice on 15 May 1307 and
arrived on 3 June.” Henry Bowet (1407-23) spent Ascension Day
1408 at the abbey”} and John Kempe was there on 26 March 1441.74

°’ Canivez, III, 200.

°° Mem. Fountains, SS, XLII (1863), 205.

*7Cartulary of the Cistercian Abbey of Fountains, ed. W. T. Lancaster, I (1915),
p.322.

SEY C. My 363:

OCCR, 1227-31, p.73-

Knowles, MO, p.209.

™ Reg. Cororidge, p.51.

” Reg. Greenfield, Il, xxi.

7 Reg. Bowet and Kempe, p.138.

7 Tbid., p.249.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS TI

Hospitality was also received, though not perhaps as a right, on
other occasions. Archbishop Greenfield, for example, was at
Kirkstall in November 131075 and again in October 1313.7

The archbishop retained the right to visit churches appropriated
to the monastery. Archbishop Bowet visited Bracewell in 140977
and in the same year the East Riding churches which Kirkstall had
acquired with Burstall.”*

The institution of incumbents to appropriated churches was
carried out by the diocesan. For example, Michael de Torenton
was instituted to Bracewell by Archbishop Gray in 1229,7
and Thomas de Bridesale to the same church by Archbishop
Romeyn in 1296,*° both on the presentation of the abbot and
convent.

There are several examples in the archbishops’ registers of
professions of obedience by a newly-elected abbot. Abbot Hugh
Grimston made his profession to Archbishop Romeyn in 1289,"
apparently five years after he became abbot, John de Bridesale to
Archbishop Corbridge in 1304*? and Walter to Archbishop
Greenfield in 1314.*3 In this last example the names of the monks
who brought to the archbishop confirmation of the abbot’s election
are also given — Simon de Fymere and William de Leeds.

The monks might come before the archbishop for ordination as
priests. In 1273 William of York, Hugh of Bilton, William of
Hawton and Hugh Grimston, later abbot, were examined in Blyth
parish church for this purpose."

Misdemeanours occasionally brought the convent to the
archbishop’s notice. Corbridge excommunicated the monk Henry
of Hoveden for leaving the monastery without permission.*’ In
1314 the abbot and convent were called to account before the
archdeacon for admitting parishioners of Leeds to the small chapel
on the first floor of the gate-house and for having allowed others to
be buried in the monastery.*°

75 Reg. Greenfield, IV, 85.
7° Reg. Greenfield, V, 29.
77 Reg. Bowet and Kempe, p.157.
Plbid.« p.082.

7” Reg. Gray, p.33.

8° Reg. Romeyn, I, 146.
Ibid. pe8s-

*2 Reg. Corbridge, p.112.
°3 Reg. Greenfield, II, 183.
*4 Reg. Giffard, p.197.

*S Reg. Corbridge, p. 111.
8° Reg. Greenfield, I, 177.

Va KIRKSTALL ABBEY

In 1308 the abbot and convent appeared before the archbishop at
Bridlington on a charge that they had ‘occupied and held the church
of Gilkirk as 1f it were a parish church’ by erecting a baptistery and
permitting burials there. The church of Bracewell claimed that
Gilkirk was’a chapel.*? The case was held over to be heard at
Cawood and its conclusion does not appear.

(b) With Appropriated Churches

The founders of the Cistercian order had renounced explicitly any
income from ecclesiastical sources, such as ‘churches, altars or
tithes,** but, though in the early days such gifts were occasionally
refused, as early as about 1170 Alexander III felt it necessary to
address a circular to Cistercian houses ordering them to observe
their constitutions in this matter."

It has already been shown how Kirkstall Abbey had come to
possess, in its early days, the vill of Barnoldswick, and how the
church at Barnoldswick had been destroyed.” In order to make
some compensation to the villagers for the loss of their church
Archbishop Murdac had ordered the chapels of Bracewell and
Marton, which had been in the parish of Barnoldswick, to be raised
to the status of parish churches.°' As the archbishop died m
October 1153 and the order refers to the monks of Kirkstall,
not of Barnoldswick, the change can be dated, with reasonable
certainty to the summer of 1153. In 1222, or soon after, Richard de
Tempest granted the advowson of Bracewell to the abbey,” and
the first record’ of the imstitutton of an imcumibent sat othe
abbey’s presentation, Michael de Torenton, occurs in 1229.

Not all the abbey’s candidates for presentation to Bracewell were
in full orders. Thomas de Bridesale was instituted to the living as a
sub-deacon in December 1294.%4 It would be interesting to know
whether Thomas had any connection with John de Bridesale, who
became abbot in 1304. Both Thomas de Bridesale and Henry de
Berwick were granted by Archbishop Romeyn custody of
sequestration of the parish while they were still acolytes.

‘7 Reg. Greenfield, V, 208.
88 Guignard, p.252.
*°Knowles, MO, p.355.
2 See ABOVE) (055:

MEY G.. lil, 192.

EC, Vil, 246:

2) Reg. Gray, p33:

** Reg. Romeyn, 1, 141.
SIbtd., pp-14l, 97.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS a8

Robert Risseton (or Rushton) was instituted to Bracewell on 8
October 1306 on the presentation of the abbot and convent.” In
1308 Nicholas de Stokton successfully challenged the appoint-
ment on the basis of his papal provision to the benefice.%’
Risseton was ordered to vacate the church and refund revenues,”
and. -on 27 March A320 Stokton took the.oath of canonical
obedience to the archbishop for Bracewell.” Risseton became
rector of Adel in 1309.'° This provides an interesting illustration
of how papal provision could over-ride the rights of an
ecclesiastical patron even after formal induction and institution
had taken place.

In 1347 a vicarage was ordained at Bracewell by Archbishop
Zouche after permission had been given by the king to alienate
into mortmain.’*' The archbishop took an annual pension for
himself of £1 10s. od. and ss. annually for the dean and chapter.
The vicar was to be presented by the abbot and convent who
would build, at their own cost, ‘a competent mansion-house’.
The vicar would be paid seven marks per annum, a figure well
below that considered adequate by the fourth Lateran Council.
The vicar would provide lights for the altar and the monastery
would bear all other burdens, ordinary and extraordinary, repairs
and new buildings of chancel, archdiaconal procurations,
synodals and tenths for the taxation of the church. On two
occasions, in 1459 and 1491, presentation to the living lapsed to
the archbishop. '”

The Tempests did not lose their interest in Bracewell church.
A chantry was built at the east end, probably during the reign of
Henry VII, a north aisle was added, the pillars of which bear the
niche on their western face characteristic of “Tempest’ churches.
After the Dissolution the family again acquired the advowson
and the last presentation made by a Tempest was in 1593.

The church of Marton had passed, before 1219, to Bolton
Priory but a pension of 20s. was paid to Kirkstall in recognition
of its interest in it.’

°° Calendar of Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters II,
A.D. 1305-1342, ed. W. H. Bliss (1895), p.45.

7 1bid.

8 Ibid.

° Reg. Greenfield, I, 78.

mW. I. Lancaster “Adel’,PTh:S, 1V (1895), 280.

PINE PIE 1945-46, p-430.

'2'These details are taken from T. D. Whitaker, History and Antiquities of the
Deanery of Craven, 2nd edn (1912), p.102.

PPEYVC,| VIL. 240:

74 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

The position of Gilkirk, or St Mary-le-Gill, is an interesting one.
The church stands in a beautiful hollow about one and a half miles
from Barnoldswick towards Thornton, on what was probably the
very edge of the land held by Kirkstall in that area. The oldest part
of the present church 1s late medieval and there 1s a date, interpreted
as. 1524, off the south face of the tower: There was almost
certainly, however, a church or chapel on the site at an earlier date.
No church is mentioned in the Taxation of Pope Nicholas of 1291
nor does there appear to be any reference in the diocesan registers to
the institution of an incumbent. It seems possible that the church
was built by or for the parishioners of Barnoldswick in
compensation for the loss of their own parish church and that it was
perhaps served by the monks. This view is supported by the case,
brought before the archbishop in 1308, in which the monks were
accused by the vicar of Bracewell of trying to raise their ‘chapel’
of Gilkirk into a parish church.'°’ The land surrounding the
church would have been in Bracewell parish. The church is there
referred to as ‘appropriated’, but no vicarage appears to have been
ordained.

In 1456 the church of Middleton-in-Pickering was appropriated
to Kirkstall and a vicarage ordained.'°° The archbishop reserved
annually to himself £1 to pay for repairs to his cathedral, and $s. for
the dean and chapter, and made provision for distribution to the
poor of Middleton at Easter and Christmas. The abbey was again
required to provide a competent mansion. The vicar’s share was on
this occasion rather higher — £10 — and he also received 6s. 8d. for
the bread, wine and lights necessary for the high altar of his church.

In 1359 Kirkstall had become the owner of several churches and
chapels in Holderness, which had formerly belonged to the alien
priory of Burstall,'°’ a cell of Aumale.'°* The churches were Burstall
itself, Aldborough, Kilnsea, Owthorne, Paull, Skeckling and
Withernsea, in all of which vicarages had already been ordained. By
these grants Kirkstall came to possess more churches than any other
Cistercian house, at least in Yorkshire.’

'4N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Yorkshire: the West Riding (Harmondsworth,
1959), p.208.

'°5 Reg. Greenfield, V, 208.

J. Burton, Monasticon Eboracense (York, 1758), p.294. The circumstances of its
acquisition are not known, but it was still held by the abbey at the Dissolution
(Account 1539-40).

'°7 The site of Burstall is said now to be under the sea.

'8CPR, 1391-96, p.585.

'9 A. Hamilton Thompson, The English Clergy and their Organization in the later
Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), pp.116—-17.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS aS

Relations with other Orders

Apart from the dissolution of the Templars, with which the abbot
and abbey of Kirkstall were directly concerned, the abbey was
brought into contact with other orders through disputes arising
either out of the proximity of their lands, as at Bramhope with St
Leonard’s Hospital, York; through difficulties arising from the
transfer of land after the original grant, as at Keighley and
Horsforth with Haverholm Priory; or about tithe, as at Leeds and
Adeb with Holy Trinity Priory, York.**

The abbot of Kirkstall was among those summoned to York by
Archbishop Greenfield in May 1311 to give effect to Clement V’s
order to suppress the Knights Templar. The abbey was one of
twenty-four in the province of York ordered to receive a Templar
when he had confessed and been absolved. By 1312, however,
tie) Nentplae at Kirkstall” had been allowed to escape,’
and the vicar-general gave strict orders that they should
recapture him within a month or ecclesiastical censures would
be published throughout the diocese of York.''? The sequel is
not recorded.

Relations with St Leonard’s Hospital, York, seem to have been
bad, partly through the proximity of their lands at Bramhope and
partly through the hospital’s claim for thraves, that is, twenty
sheaves of corn for every plough in the diocese of York. This claim,
based on a grant said to have been made by King Athelstan in 936,
was the cause of frequent disputes, but was resolutely upheld
by successive popes.'™? Kirkstall’s quarrel, and that of other
Cistercian abbeys in Yorkshire, arose in 1225 following the
legislation of the fourth Lateran Council. An arrangement was
arrived at before the dean and chapter of York, the archdeacon and
other ecclesiastics, by which the abbeys would continue to pay
thraves on land acquired after 1215 if it had been paid by the previous
owner before that date, this presumably exempting land newly
brought under cultivation after that date.'™

In 1274 the mill at Bramhope was leased to the master of St
Leonard’s,''> but in 1299 the abbot took action against Walter,
bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, then master, for laying waste

"© The abbey’s relations with other churches were concerned almost entirely with
tithe.

"t Reg. Greenfield, 1V, 364; V, xxx1x.

2 Reg. Greenfield, V, 1-2.

"3 VCH, Yorkshire, Ill, 336.

“4 CB, pp. 206-68:

"8°CB, pp. 5V—XV1.

76 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

houses and gardens in Bramhope which the abbey had leased for a
numberof years to a former master?”

In 1377, on the petition of the master (a royal clerk), Edward III
appointed a commission to hear charges against Abbot John (de
Thornberg) who, in company with certain merchants, “Taillours’,
and others, had entered houses and lands in York and elsewhere,
breaking down and stealing trees, hunting game and attacking
Servants.”

Kirkstall was brought into contact with the Gilbertine house of
Haverholm through lands in Horsforth and lands and a mill in
Keighley which Adam FitzPeter had granted to Haverholm, and
the use of which had been made over to Kirkstall before 1162 at a
rent-ot {4:'" In 1234, just after the, Everingham™tamily shad
succeeded to Adam’s inheritance, the abbot of Kirkstall summoned
the prior of Haverholm to show why he had not performed the
services due to Margaret of Rivers, lady of Harewood and
tenant-in-chief.''? This was only the beginning of a series of
disputes’”° lasting until 1314 when it was adjudged that the abbot of
Kirkstall might in future settle direct with the lord of Harewood in
respect:of services duc, at Evermeham’s expense."

The Abbot and the outside World

The outside activities of the abbot of an important Cistercian house
such as Fountains or Rievaulx, even within his own order, were
such as to fill a considerable part of the year. He was obliged to visit
the general chapter, to visit the daughters of his own house and to
pay a visit to the monastery from which it had itself sprung — each
of these annually.'** Having no daughters, Kirkstall was spared the
second of these duties and the comparative proximity of Fountains
lightened the burden of the third, but at least in earlier days there
was no escaping the first of these duties. Monasteries in distant
countries had obtained permission to attend less frequently, but the
petition of the English abbots for a similar concession had been
turned down in no uncertain manner. '*?

"© Monastic Notes, I, ed. W. P. Baildon, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series,
XVII (1895).

"7 CPR, 1377-81, p.95. The further activities of this abbot are recorded above, p.5o.

"8 CB, pp.67-68.

UCB. pp 12k

20 Monastic Notes, I, 108, III.

"CB, pp.227-28.

'22 Knowles, MO, p.262.

123 Canivez, lk. 272, Petitio .~ > nullatenus adnutitur .

EXTERNAL RELATIONS vig

Only on three occasions is it possible to be reasonably certain
that the abbot of Kirkstall was present at the general chapter. In
1217 he brought news of the illness of the abbot of Rufford;'*4 in
1300 royal protection was granted to the abbot ‘going to his general
chapter’;'*5 and in 1327 William, abbot of Kirkstall, ‘going beyond
the seas to the general chapter’, nominated two attorneys. '”° Royal
protection was also granted in that year.'?’

There are, however, reasons for believing that the abbot attended
more frequently than this. A letter from Hugh Grimston, abbot
between 1284 and 1304, suggests that he was present at the chapter
in 1287.'?® Petitions were presented in 1258 for permission to
celebrate annually the anniversary of their founders'’? and in 1282
for the dispersal of the community, "°° but though these might not
of course have been presented in person, it is probable that they
were. In 1300 and 1327, when the abbot did attend the chapter,
royal protection was given. It is possible, therefore, that, when no
special reason is given for the grant of royal protection for the
abbot for a short period, he was attending the chapter. Such
occasions would add 1312’ and 1322' to the list of possible
attendances. The statutes do not confirm either of them. With the
outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War references to English houses
disappear from the statutes. The chapter seems to take a new
interest in the English houses from 1409 onwards. In that year a
visitation of them by the abbot of Pontigny was ordered'33 and in
1410 the chapter ordered that they should send two abbots only to
the chapter, one from each province, the remainder being excused
as long as the wars should last.'34 In 1437 the English abbots were
allowed by Pope Eugenius IV to celebrate a general chapter for
themselves every three years either in England or in Wales."35

Attendance at the general chapter often brought with it new
duties, some of which must have involved a considerable
expenditure of time. In 1214 the abbot of Kirkstall was directed to

'4 Thid., p.469.

’C PIR 1202-1301; p.515.

WE CPR, 1327-30, p.132.
NOG. poke

28 Fundacio, p.189, ‘Finitis ad tempus capituli generalis angustiis de Simone’.
9 Canivez, Il, 444:

Ho Canivez, Ul, 212:

GPK | 1307-13;,_p-43 5:

MOC PRG 4321-24, pp. 35; 120.
133 Camivez= TV. PLZ:

161d @ IPs b 32

Nid. \p-A2u:

78 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

enquire into the quarrel between James the clerk and the abbot of
Rufford.'3° As no abbot was deputed to inform him of the general
chapter’s order, it may be that the abbot of Kirkstall was present on
this occasion also. In 1264 the complaint of Dieulacres against Hulton
was committed for investigation to the abbots of Roche, Kirkstall and
Jervaulx.'3? That the abbot of Roche was deputed to inform his
colleagues suggests that the abbot of Kirkstall was not present. In 1237
the complaint of Stanley against Merevale was committed to Roche,
Salley and Kirkstall, and the abbot of Combe was to inform them, "3°
while in 1247 the settlement of the dispute between Calder and Holm
Cultram was entrusted to the abbots of Kirkstall and Salley. 3°

The nature of some of these disputes is illustrated by the case
between Furness and Salley in 1220 which the abbots of Kirkstall
and Byland were called upon to settle. The dispute had arisen about
the proximity of granges at Winterburn and Stainton. The two
abbots decided that both granges should remain and the parties in
dispute accepted the decision ‘amicably’.'4°

A later abbot of Kirkstall, John Topclifte, also found himself at
Furness 1n 1367, on this occasion in the company of the abbots of
Furness, Whalley, Holme and Salley, with a monk from Citeaux,
to decide a dispute between the abbot and the monks. This time the
abbots were ordered by the king to supervise the visitation. '4' The
abbot is found as a witness to charters of other Cistercian houses,
notably the grant of smithies and land bearing iron-ore at Blacker,
in Upper Hoyland, to Rievaulx, witnessed by the first abbot,
Alexander, and his*monk, Serlo.'4?

In 1407 the abbot of Kirkstall, at the invitation of the abbots of
Waverley and Furness, was joint president with the abbot of
Thame: at a‘ chapter held at Combe Abbey.4? This was the-last
called in England independently of the general chapter during the
Great Schism, +

BCanivez, |, 425.

winCanivez, Il, 164.

BP Tid. p-283:

2 Ibid... 424.

'4° The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey, Il, ed. John Brownbill, Chetham Society,
LXXVI, 11(1916), 475. This case does not appear in Canivez, though the abbots
claim the authority of the ‘domini Cisterciensis’ for their action.

“4° CPR, 1364-67, p.404.

'? EYC, Ill, 363-64, see also p.340 for witness to a grant of land to Fountains.

‘8 The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey, Il, ed. John Brownbill, Chetham Society,
LXXVIII, 111(1919), 699.

'44On the effect of the Great Schism on English Cistercian houses, see Knowles,
RO, Il, 168-69, or, more fully, Rose Graham, “The Great Schism and the English
Monasteries of the Cistercian Order’, EHR, XLIV (1929), 373-87.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS 79

The abbot was also called upon occasionally to intervene in the
affairs of houses outside his own order. Thus Abbot Turgisius
Went im 1106 sds ~papal delegate to the house of canons “at
Guisborough to settle a dispute about tithe between that house and
SeiManys, York.

It has already been mentioned that the abbot was called upon to
attene the trial of “the demplars--at York.’ He served’-as
archbishop’s commissioner in the enclosure of a hermit at Beeston
in 1294, although there had been an agreement that no anchorite or
anchoress should be established there except by consent of the prior
and monks of Holy Trinity, York.'*’ In the same year the abbot
enclosed “Sibill de Insula» near the chapel, of Se Edmund,
Doncaster. "4°

The only parliament to which the abbot appears to have been
summoned is the ‘de Montfort’ parliament of 1265, together with
many other ecclesiastics of every order."49 Although Cistercian
abbots were frequently summoned to attend parliament in
Edward I’s reign'*° the abbot of Kirkstall does not appear among
them.'5' He was, however, summoned to attend a royal council at
York im. 1319:'**

The abbot served as the king’s commissioner on at least two
occasions, in I411 and 1496, when he received the homage of
members of the Clifford family for their lands."

The records that remain are too few to enable any complete
picture of the abbot’s activities outside the monastery to be drawn
from them. They do seem to emphasise, however, that Kirkstall
was not a monastery of first importance. Compared with Fountains
the number of occasions when its abbot was used by the general
chapter was small. The abbot was not consulted by the
ecclesiastical or secular authorities to any appreciable extent, and
the number of occasions when he was used by them, when
considered against a background of nearly 400 years of history, is
small indeed. Unless the shortage of evidence is misleading us it

145 Cartularium prioratus de Gyseburne, Il, ed. W. Brown, SS, LXXXIX (1894), 41.

MoS ce Above, 0-75.

7 Rey. Romeya, 1, 140; see also BYC, Ill, 281.

48 Reg. Romeyn, I, 141.

MACCK, 1204-08, p.86.

0H, M. Chew, English Ecclesiastical Tenants-in-Chief and Knight Service (Oxford,
1032) p17 4.

‘5S! The name of the abbot of Kirkstall does not appear in Miss Chew’s source, The
Lords’ Report on the Dignity of a Peer.

HACCR, 1318—23;-p-.202.

53 CCR, 1409-13, p.158; 1494-1509.

8O KIRKSTALL ABBEY

would seem that the abbot could not have been unduly distracted
from the business of his house by affairs outside it, while many of
the duties in the outside world which he was required to perform
were in the service of his order or of the Church as a whole.

6
The Last Years

Economic Change

A comparison of the surviving rent-roll’ with figures given in the
account for the year immediately following the Dissolution
(1539-40)? makes possible some conclusions about the economic
life of the abbey during the last eighty years of its history.

Two points, however, must be noted. The Bardsey and
Collingham lands are not shown in the 1459 rent-roll. In 1539-40
they were producing rents of about £100, a net gain to the abbey of
£10 per annum when the £90 fee-farm had been paid. Secondly, the
years 1537-38 saw the leasing of almost all the abbey’s demesne
lands. These two items must therefore be omitted from the account
before comparisons are made.

When this has been done two matters become immediately
apparent — a large increase in income from rents to the extent of
perhaps £39 annually and a considerably more effective exploitation
of granges, which increased the total income from this source by
some £24. Given a total income from rents of £358 in 1539 this
means that a21.3 per cent increase had taken place. ‘Fhe increase in
income from rents is partly from newly acquired land, notably in
Leeds itself? and possibly at Seacroft, but also from an increase in
rents from existing holdings, notably in Bramley, Armley and
Newhall.

A number of granges which appear not to have been leased or let
for rent in 1459 had been let by 1539. These included a second
grange at Armley (Wether Grange had been let in 1459), New
Lathe (Horsforth), Brearey, one of the abbey’s oldest granges,
Chapel Allerton and a second grange at Allerton, Darrington and
Rushton.

In the last year or so of the abbey’s history there was a very rapid
leasing of almost all the abbey’s demesne lands, which lay mainly in
West Headingley and Cookridge, but with the smaller amounts in
Bramley, Eccup and Bardsey.* This process began in August 1537
and was complete by the end of 1538.

'‘A Rent-Roll of Kirkstall Abbey’, pp. 1-21.

*Account 1539-40.

3W.T. Lancaster, ‘The Possessions of Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds’, PTh.S, IV (1895),
37-41.

4The Kirkstall leases are in the Public Record Office, E303/23/Yorkshire, nos.
325-430.

82 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

Kirkstall appears to have been very late in leasing its lands on this
scale. R. B. Smith’s conclusion, from his study of eight other
Yorkshire houses of different orders was that nearly one-third of
the leases had been granted before 1530.5 At Kirkstall, of the
eighty-eight leases for which details are available only two had been
granted by 1530 and it was 1538 before one-third of them had been
granted. The close association of the last abbot with the Pilgrimage
of Grace suggests a conservative attitude in the leadership of the
house and it was perhaps the failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace and
the beginning of the attack upon the larger houses which led to the
conclusion that the old ways could not be re-established. Smith
suggests that with the Dissolution approaching the monasteries
were interested in quick financial gains and in acquiring goodwill
among their neighbours.°

G. W. O. Woodward sees the opportunity of extracting a fine
from the lessee when leases were granted as one of the ways in
which holders of estates ‘tried to meet the inflationary spiral of the
sixteenth century’.? Smith has said that “There is nothing to show
whether fines were levied in these late leases’.* The Kirkstall
documents show clearly the payment of a fine or gressom in almost
every case. The amount of the fine 1s rarely stated. The most usual
term of a lease was forty years, but periods ranging from twenty to
fifty-one years are found, and, occasionally, for life.

Even in these last years, however, when nearly all its land had
passed out of the abbey’s direct control, the overall picture still
retained some distinctively Cistercian features. The Kirkstall
accounts show only two whole manors out to farm in such a way
that the tenants had no direct connection with the monastery.
These were Lyngarth, near Huddersfield, isolated from the rest of
the abbey’s possessions, and Clifford, near Wetherby, leased by
John Chambers and William, his son. Their rents together totalled
£22 and it is certainly not true of Kirkstall, as Knowles asserted in
general terms, that, as between manors and separate tenancies, ‘the
former accounted for the larger part of the income’.”

The other feature which 1s perhaps distinctively Cistercian is the

comparatively little dependence on ecclesiastical sources of
revenue. At the Dissolution, excluding the churches acquired with

SR. B. Smith, Land and Politics in the England of Henry VIII (Oxford, 1970),
p82)

°Ibid., pp.81-83.

7G. W. O. Woodward, The Dissolution of the Monasteries (1966), p.It.

‘Smith, Land and Politics, p.1t.

°*Knowles, RO, Ill, 250.

THE LAST YEARS 83

Burstall Priory, Kirkstall was receiving the £30 farm of the rectory
of Middleton, £6 13s. 4d., rent of lands pertaining to the rectory of
Bracewell, and £15 16s. 8d. rent and farm of tithes in Barnolds-
wick and the other vills in its parish — a total of £52 Ios. od., or
about one-eighth of its income, less the £90 fee-farm of Bardsey
and Collingham. Of this sum £4 13s. 4d. was paid to the curate
at Gilkirk and £1 os. 6d. to York in synodals and procurations.
The contrast with a Benedictine house can be seen by looking at
Burstall Priory, which Kirkstall had acquired in 1396. There the
income from churches made up about three-quarters of the
total:™

Of the other sources of income the mining of minerals was
confined to Horsforth and produced only 2s. 4d. in the year
1539-40, by no means a typical year. The abbey owned smithies in
Weetwood and Hesywell which were leased to Sir Robert Nevill
in 1538, with permission to take as much wood as he needed to
make charcoal.'! Mills yielded £21, mainly from Bar Grange, at
Burley on the north bank of the Aire, where water-power was
abundant. Included among the assets were over 3,000 acres of
woodland,'* the value of which cannot be estimated and little
of which was worked in the year of the surrender. The actual
figures for woodland must be much higher as no figures
are given for Bramley or Chapel Allerton. About two-thirds
of the 3,000 acres was in Cookridge, but the wood of Hawks-
worth, immediately west of the abbey site, accounted for 800
acres.

Boon-work had been commuted to a money-payment at the rate
of 3d. or 4d. per precaria, or in Bardsey galline (hens), which
brought in £3 17s. oad. in the year 1539-40. The abbot collected
the customary wapentake fine in certain areas, yielding
£1 6s. 62d. The total income for the lands of Kirkstall for the
years before the wholesale leasing of demesne might therefore
appear as follows:

‘Figures from the 1539-40 Account. The separate section for Burstall in this
account and the omission of the Burstall properties from the 1459 rent-roll
suggests that, although Burstall had been acquired in 1396, its accounts had
been kept separate and had never been amalgamated with those of the parent
house.

Tease 378. PRO, E303/23 Yorkshire. The smithies were later held by Thomas
Pepper, a former monk of Kirkstall. R. A. Mott has argued that the forge on the
abbey site itself did not come into existence until c. 1600, “Kirkstall Forge and
Monkish Iron-making’, PTh.S, LIII (1972), 160-66.

'* Account 1539-40.

84 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

i
Rents from lands and mills 348
Rent from Bardsey and Collingham
£100, less Lgo0 fee-farm IO
Churches 52
Boon-work, wapentake fines, say 5
LAS

The commissioners compiling the Valor were to deduct
allowances amounting to about 8 per cent of the total income of the
house, '} leaving Kirkstall with a net income of £367 on which the
tenth would be based."

The Surrender of the House

Of the late abbots of Kirkstall two were almost certainly members
of local families with a long connection with the abbey and both
were from the group of notable families which had become
established in the Potter Newton area of Allerton by the end of the
fourteenth century. The editor of the 1459 rent-roll, referring to
John Killingbeck, a free tenant of Allerton, wrote, “His son joins
the fraternity, and in due time becomes abbot’.' It seems likely that
Abbot Killingbeck came of this family, but there is no firm
evidence. There can be no doubt, however, that Abbot William
Marshall came of the Allerton family of that name. Christopher
Marshall of Potter Newton made his will in 1519'° and appointed
‘my brother, the lord William Marshall, abbot of Kirkstall’ to
supervise its execution and to approve the appointment of a priest
who, for one year, should sing masses for the souls of his father and
mother and ‘all cristyn saullys’.

At the surrender the community consisted of abbot, prior,
sub-prior and twenty-nine monks.” In addition to these, one other
monk is known from the last years. His name is not recorded, but
he is known to have been imprisoned in Pontefract Castle by

'3 Knowles, RO, III, 242.

'4Knowles, RO, III, 244, n.1, gives £336 for Kirkstall but does not explain how this
figure was arrived at. Since calculations have been based on 1539-40, the year of
surrender when economic activity was likely to have been below rather than above
the normal level, one might have expected a figure of more rather than less than
£3167.

'S*A Rent-Roll of Kirkstall Abbey’, p.14.

'©*Testamenta Leodiensia’ [1496-1524], p.146.

CLP, 1530, Ul, 198. See A. Lonsdale, “The Last Monks of KurkstallMabbay<
PTh.S, LHI (1972), 201-15.

THE LAST YEARS 85

Thomas, Lord Darcy, as steward of Pontefract, for coining. The
date was probably 1522.'* Where Kirkstall held whole townships it
might be expected that the 1539 rent-roll would include the names
of most of their inhabitants. A comparison of the names of the
monks with the names of local families suggests few local
connections. Of the thirty-two members of the community only
six similar names appear on the rent-roll and this of course by no
means proves a connection. Thomas Pepper, one of the junior
monks,'? was the son of John Pepper, yeoman, of Bramley. It 1s
possible that William Lupton was of the family of that name, also
of Bramley.”° The prior was John Browne and there was a monk
Gilbert Browne, while there were families of that name among the
abbey’s tenants in Bramley and Horsforth. There were families by
name Matthew in Eccup, and Sandall in Bramley,*' and there were
Claightons in Bramley and Horsforth.
Of the thirty early sixteenth-century wills of local residents
published,** only three included bequests to the abbey. All of them
were by tenants of the abbey, two by the Midgleys, who held Bar
Grange, and one, dated 1503, by William Fawcett of Bar Grange.
There were all of small amounts, either $s. or 4od. to the abbot and
about 4d. to each member of the community.
On 4 fumerrs35 Richard Layton petitioned Cromwell for a
commission for himself and Dr Thomas Legh* to visit the
monasteries of northern England.*4 The collection of the figures
which make up the Valor had been undertaken earlier in the year
and Layton realised that ‘far-sighted superiors had read the signs of
the times and were acting accordingly’.*5 Disposal of stock, the
selling or hiding of plate and precious stones and a process of
leasing lands had already begun.*° It was not until the end of the
year, however, that Layton received his commission and in the
depths of the winter of 1535-36 Legh and Layton travelled over one
thousand miles and visited 121 houses in northern counties.*”? They
'®CLP, 1537, I, 66. From papers seized from Darcy when he was executed after the
Pilgrimage of Grace.

'?Pepper’s will is discussed below, p.89.

*° Woodward, pp.150, 159; Account 1539-40.

*1See below, pp.88-89, for the later history of Edward Sandall.

2“Testamenta Leodiensia’ [1496-1524], pp.1-16, 139-47.

*3For short biographies of these, the best-known of Cromwell’s visitors, see
Knowles, RO, III, 270-73.

*4 Thid., p.268.

*S Thid.

been let on this kind of lease. See above, pp.81-82.
*7Knowles, RO, Ill, 286 and Appendix VI, pp.476-77.

86 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

came to Kirkstall from Fountains and Ripon and turned north again
to visit Bolton and Jervaulx.**

Dr Woodward has shown that the visitors achieved their
remarkable speed of working partly by reducing their enquiry to
tabular form and by concentrating on five items of information
only.-“These iterns are: first; the names of those.monks«or nuns
declared guilty of certain offences against the vow of chastity;
secondly, the names of those who want to be released from their
vows and leave the cloister; thirdly, what the visitors call the
“superstition” of the house, that is to say the relic or relics held in
special esteem there; fourthly, the name of the “founder” of the
house, that is to say the living heir of the first benefactor who was
regarded as having a hereditary and particular interest in the affairs
of the convent; and lastly, in round figures, the income of the
house, and, where applicable, its debts.’ The information
collected could therefore be expressed very briefly and for Kirkstall
it reads as follows: ‘3 sod. Girdle of St Bernard for lying-in.
Founder, the King, Rents:329..2°

Professor Knowles has discussed exhaustively the references to
sexual offences in the visitors’ findings.’ A quick perusal of the
entries for other houses shows that many of them possessed a girdle
or tunic, generally named after one of the saints, which was
presumably loaned to women to help them in child-birth. Bath had
the ‘vincula Sancti Petri’; Grace Dieu, the girdle and tunic of St
Francis; and Bromholm the girdle of St Mary.3? Kirkstall had
passed to the earl of Lancaster through the marriage of the heiress,
Alice Lacy, with Thomas of Lancaster ‘on or before 28 October
1294’ and to the crown with the accession of the first Lancastrian
king in 1399.3

The visitations were complete by the end of February 1536; in
April the process of dissolving the smaller houses began. Kirkstall’s
near neighbours, the nunnery at Arthington and Holy Trinity
Priory, York, which held the parish church of Leeds and collected
tithe from the parish, were among those to go at this early stage.
Sir Arthur Darcy, who later acquired Kirkstall property, was
granted the Priory’s former possessions in Leeds.

CLP rns aOo Kes ae)

? Woodward, pp.32-33. See also Knowles, RO, III, 287-88.

GLP. 1530, 142)

3'Knowles, RO, III, 296-303.

3? These examples are all included in extracts from the Visitors’ reports printed by
Knowles, RO, III, 288.

33R. Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, I (1953), pp.189, 138.

THE LAST YEARS 87

At the end of 1536 the north of England was shaken by the
Pilgrimage of Grace.34 The disturbances started in Lincolnshire in
October 1536. There was a further rising in Yorkshire and York was
occupied on 24 October. Thomas, Lord Darcy, Sir Arthur’s father
and steward of Pontefract, surrendered the castle there and joined the
rebels. A great council of ‘pilgrims’ was summoned to Pontefract on 2
December and the clergy were to meet at Pontefract at the same time,
in what some have called a ‘convocation’. John Ripley, last abbot of
Kirkstall, and ‘one of the more learned of the northern clergy’,}5 was
one of a small but distinguished group which met at the priory in
Pontefract on 4 December and then retired to discuss questions and
propositions first placed by Robert Aske before Archbishop Lee of
York, who had also joined the rebels. John Dakyn, rector of Kirby
Ravensworth and vicar-general of York, gave an eye-witness account
of the proceedings to the enquiry which followed the defeat of the
rising. He noted that the abbot of Kirkstall sat ‘at the table-end’ and
thought him asober man whospoke little. While the abbot was clearly
a party to these proceedings he seems to have made little active
contribution. Neither Dakyn nor Pickering, a Dominican friar who
was also present,?° mentions the abbot except to note his presence. It is
not possible, therefore, to know what were the abbot’s opinions on
the range of expectedly conservative views expressed.

Sir Henry Savile, writing to Cromwellin January 1537, mentioned
riots between the abbot’s servants and those of Sir Christopher
Danby. He commented on the abbot’s ‘lightness’ and thought there
was ‘cause enough to depose him; and a good man there (for it is a
house with great lands) would do the king good service’.37 However,
John Ripley was not deposed, nor did he suffer the fate of his brother
abbots of Jervaulx, Sawley and Whalley and the former abbot of
Fountains, William Thirsk, who, with Friar Pickering, the abbot’s
companion at Pontefract, were all executed.+*

The rising, with its small later outbursts at Scarborough and Hull,
was over by the end of January 1537. It was in that month that the
leasing of the abbey’s demesne lands began, and over the next two
years practically the whole of the abbey’s demesne was leased.

4The fullest account is by M. H. and R. Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536, and
the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1915). There are shorter accounts
in J. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558 (Oxford, 1952), pp.385-93, and
Knowles, RO, III, 320-35.

35See Smith, Land and Politics, p.198.

(CLP) 1537, Xl G), 341, 462-64.

7 Ibid., pp.130-34.

#Knowles,’RO, Ill, 332, 334.

88 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

It was in his dealings with the abbeys which had caused trouble
during the Pilgrimage of Grace that the earl of Sussex paved the
way to deal with the larger abbeys. After leaving Sawley and
Whalley, Sussex had turned his attention to the great abbey of
Furness and ‘almost at a venture, suggested that [the abbot] might
feel disposed to make a free surrender of his house’.3? Kirkstall’s
turn came late. It was on 22 November 1539*° that John Ripley and
thirty-one members of the community, in their chapter-house,
surrendered the abbey to the same Richard Layton who had visited
themuime 1350"

The Fate of the Community

The fate of Abbot Ripley is not altogether clear. He was present at
the surrender in the chapter-house, but after that his name
disappears from the records. The monks’ superior is named as John
Brown, prior. Allister Lonsdale, after a study of the archbishops’
registers, assumed that Ripley and Brown were the same person”
and this may be so. The pension which was granted on 1 March
1540 and back-dated to Michaelmas 1539*3 was of 100 marks, asum
appropriate to the head of a house the size of Kirkstall. Ripley (or
Brown) was made sub-deacon 1n 151344 and cannot therefore have
been abbot for the first time in 1508—09.45 He is said to have lived in
the abbey gate-house until his death.*

All members of the community have been studied individually
and the available information about each of them has been
collected.4’7 There are, however, some more general points which
may be made. Knowles noted that it was much more difficult for
an ex-monk to find a benefice in northern England than in the
south. Because of the number of monasteries, the number of
monks seeking benefices was large; because of their great size the
number of parishes was small. General wealth was less. It is
perhaps surprising, therefore, that so many former monks of
Kirkstall served in parishes after the Dissolution. Edward Sandall

PUDid 332.

4°See CLP, 1539, XIV (ii), 198, not 1540, as in Dugdale, MA, V, 529.

41For the deed of surrender, see T. Rymer, Foedera, XIV (1712), 663, which also
gives 1540 as the date.

“Lonsdale, p.204.

SiCPR, 1558-00, p.$76.

44Lonsdale, p.204.

4s See Dugdale, MA, V, 525, 1:23.

Lonsdale, p.204.

47Lonsdale, pp.204—-12.

THE LAST YEARS 89

beeame sa -chantry priest im York and later’ served a cure at
Tadcaster;#* Gabriel Lofthouse became a chaplain in Richmond and
on his death in 1552 was buried in Richmond parish church;
Thomas Pepper was rector of Adel from 1551 to 1553; William
Northives was ‘clerk of Adel’ in the 1540s; Anthony Jackson was
curate of Horsforth, later of Otley, and in 1558 was described as
‘curate of Horsforth Hall, Guiseley’. William Lupton is said to have
been curate of Huddersfield; Richard Bateson may have been curate
of Spofforth and rector of Birkin. John Henryson was possibly
curate and chantry-priest of Leeds and was buried in Leeds parish
ehurciin 1545.

Pepper, at least, could have lived in considerable comfort. When
he died his will included bequests totalling more than £86, ten
angels of gold and a debt of £20 which he forgave the debtor. Two
men-servants and possibly three women-servants were mentioned
in his will, showing that he had been living ‘in a style and manner
more appropriate to a minor gentleman than to an ex-religious on a
subsistence pension’.*? The rectory of Adel would have added £16
to his pension of £5; his leaseholds certainly brought him in more
than the £20 he paid in rent. His father had left him the family
property in Bramley and his purchases included the prosperous
Weetwood ironworks leased at the surrender of the house to Sir
Robert Neville. By contrast, Edward Heptonstall left cash
bequests amounting to only £3 12s., and Gabriel Lofthouse left
only very meagre personal possessions. °°

Of the ex-monks it must have been Edward Sandall who caused
the authorities most concern. He had served a number of chantry
chapels in York in the years immediately following the surrender of
the house, but in February 1568 he was presented at the
archbishop’s visitation as ‘a misliker of the established religion and
a sower of seditious rumours’. It was alleged that he openly
maintained the doctrine of praying to the saints; that though as a
‘corrupter of youth’ he was forbidden to teach, he yet continued to
do so and that he read romances instead of the scriptures. He was
also reputed to be a-great usurer. He pleaded cuilty only to the
charge of reading romances and vigorously denied all the others.
He was allowed to purge himself by the oath of twelve men, but
was punished when it was found that he had served at Tadcaster
without admission by the diocesan authorities.>!

“The information which follows is taken from Lonsdale, passim.
#” Woodward, p.1s0.

" 1bid_ap-l st.

*' VCH] Yorkshire, The City of York, ed. P. Tillott (1961), p.15o.

(ew

QO KIRKSTALL ABBEY

The wills studied by Dr Woodward show no evidence of any
attempt to continue a communal life of any kind,*? but they
provide plenty of evidence of continued contact between the
former members of the Kirkstall community, a number of whom
had settled in the immediate neighbourhood. Thomas Pepper, for
example, mentioned four of his former brethren in his will.*

The. ‘total: pension -bill amounted “to £239 14s. 3d. 4Dr
Woodward has shown that Kirkstall had an unusually large number
of annuitants dependent upon it, adding a further charge upon the
house of £73 3s. 4d. Thus there would clearly be a heavy charge
upon the income from the former monastery’s possessions for a
number of years after the surrender, but these would be reduced as
pensioners and annuitants died.

Links can be traced between former monks of Kirkstall and
Catholic recusancy in Yorkshire.55 Middleton was a known
Catholic centre until the middle of the eighteenth century. Paul
Mason, a former monk, was associated with Gilbert Leigh of
Middleton. Thomas Bertlett, another former monk, referred to
‘my host George Hall’ in his will and directed ‘that there remain at
the said George Hall’s house my altar with the altar cloths’. Hall
had acquired Allerton Grange by indenture in 1533°° and there is a
history of Catholic connections at the Grange until Hall’s
descendants left in the early eighteenth century.

The Lands of Kirkstall

There was a considerable element of stability in land-holding in the
years immediately following the surrender of the house. More than
100 pre-Dissolution leases were continued. Before its winding-up
in 1553 the Court of Augmentations had granted twenty-nine new
leases, but of these twenty-three were to the former tenant, his
widow or his son.

It is noticeable that those who had held land of the abbey before
the surrender failed to increase their holdings. Sir William
Gascoigne who ‘had as much substance as many peers’ and who
held land of the abbey at Arthington sought favours of Cromwell
in 1536-3757. but failed to gain land. Sir Robert Nevill of

Cif. Knowles, kO.Wl412=12.

‘3 Printed in full in Woodward, pp.157-61.
CRP 25305 Sav (il), 198.

‘SFor this paragraph, see Lonsdale, pp.212-13.
56 Account 1539-40.

57See Smith, Land and Politics, pp.145, 244-45.

THE LAST YEARS QI

Liversedge, who held the Weetwood ironworks on lease, also
sought favours from Cromwell but gained nothing and had lost
évene the ironworks by .1542.°° The ‘manor. or-.grange. of
Micklethwaite, with a cottage at Collingham had been leased to
Bernard Paver in 1533. Richard Paver (the relationship, if any, is
not known), ‘the most remarkable case of a rising yeoman’,°?
hoped to acquire the property but failed. Henry Mason, the king’s
collector of rents for most of the abbey’s former estates, did not
increase his holding.

Some of the abbey’s land went to the building of large estates,
but those estates were not in the hands of men who had been
associated with the abbey. Sir Arthur Darcy, younger son of Lord
Darcy, was vigorously and unscrupulously building up an estate in
Craven. He gained from the abbey land a large property at Coates
(Barnoldswick) to add to lands acquired from Sawley, Healaugh
Priory, and, im ithe Leeds area, from Holy Trinity,: York.
Kirkstall’s possessions in York went to Sir Richard Gresham, one
of the richest men of his day, who also acquired the site and
demesne lands of Fountains.°? Two of Gresham’s associates, Sir
Thomas Heneage and Sir Thomas Chaloner, acquired land in
Bardsey and Snydale respectively.°

Much of the abbey’s lands passed to new owners through the
hands of agents, of whom the best known and perhaps the most
active was William Ramsden. During 1543-46 land in many areas
where abbey land had been located passed through his hands. He
held little of it for long. The most striking is the property at Pudsey
and Loscoe Grange which he acquired on 14 September 1544 and
passed to new owners, obviously by a previous arrangement, the
next day.

One small piece of land is of some interest. It is well known that
Mary tried to re-found some of the monastic houses which had
been suppressed during the reign of her father. One such was the
Hospital of the Savoy. Folifayt Meadow, part of the Kirkstall lands
at Bardsey, was included in the land with which the Hospital was
endowed at its re-foundation.®°’ This land, under its alternative

8 Tbid., pp.244-45.

2 lide p25.

CEP 1545. Oe Gi) s 125,

* Smith, Land and Politics, pp.228-29, 235-36; CLP, 1538, XIII, 1.
° CLP, 1545, XX (i), 523; Smith, Land and Politics, p.240.

°CPR, 1548-49, p.123; 1553, p-14.

“CLP, 1544, XIX (ii), p.184.

°SCPR, 1557-58, p.361.

Q2 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

name of Kirkstall Ing, was among the Hospital’s possessions when
it was finally dissolved in 1702.°°

In 1564 came the largest and most significant grant of the former
abbey lands when Rowlande Haywarde and Robert Savile acquired
lands in Headingley, Burley, Bar Grange, Armley, Newhall,
Allerton by Bradford, Rodley and Moor Grange.*’ These lands
were valued at the Dissolution at £100 per year and therefore
represented nearly one-third of the abbey’s net annual income.
Robert Savile was an illegitimate son of Sir Henry Savile. Robert’s
descendants became successively Baron Savile, Viscount Savile and
eventually earl of Sussex, the male line becoming extinct in 1671. In
1668 Frances, sister of the last earl, had married the heir to the earl
of Cardigan and so the estates passed into the hands of his family.°

By 1711 the Cardigans had also acquired, by means which are
not clear, the site of the abbey and the demesne lands. On the
surrender of the house this land had been granted on a lease of
twenty-one years to Robert Pakenham, the ‘farmer of the lord
King’. In 1543 ‘these same lands. were granted to Thomas
Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury.’° Cranmer appears, however,
not to have taken possession of the lands, for in 1545 they were
surveyed with a view to their acquisition by Cranmer in place of
certain other lands held by Cranmer which the King now
required.” Even now, however, Cranmer appears not to have
gained possession, for in August 1547 he was yet again granted the
land in fulfilment of Henry VIII’s will. This grant was ‘for the
reversion’. Pakenham had perhaps died and Cranmer may have
taken possession, for in 1550 he was given licence to alienate his
Kirkstall lands to Peter Hayman and John Sandford, to be held to
the use of the archbishop during his lifetime, to his executors for
twenty years and to Thomas, the archbishop’s youngest son, after
that. They were so held until 1557 when they reverted to the
Crown on Cranmer’s attainder for treason.”? The lands were
immediately assigned to John Gawyn and Reynold Wolf, but in
1$59, very soon after Elizabeth’s accession, Thomas Cranmer, son
of the former archbishop, successfully petitioned for the return of

“VCH, London, \xed. W. Page (1900), p. 548:

CPR, 1563-66, p.148.

8G.E.C., The Complete-Peerage, v.c. Savile.

CEP. 1540. SVN 21

MCLE. i542, CoV ik 250:

™PRO, E318/7/235. Theres an account of the farmer for the year 37-Henry VIM
(1545-46) in the library of Lambeth Palace, Receivers’ Accounts, 1372.

CPR, 1547-48, P:37s 1549-51, P:32% 2557, p2483.

THE LAST YEARS 93

his father’s lands. Ten years later, however, Cranmer was in arrears
with his rent and the Crown resumed possession of the lands.73
There appears to be no further record until they are shown in the
Cardigan estate map of 1711.7

It will be clear from this account of the history of Kirkstall
Abbey that her community was soon in possession of sources of
income forbidden by the statutes of the order. Indeed, the
consequences of irregular possessions of land, services and rights,
which soon became widespread within the English families, were
most injurious to the spirit and reputation of the order — the
prolonged and unedifying dispute between the monks of Kirkstall
and- St Leonard’s Hospital, York, is only one of countless
examples. As a result, the story of the Cistercian order is one of the
saddest in the history of monasticism.

Citeaux and Clairvaux in their early years ‘gave as fully and as
unhesitatingly as can be given here below, an answer to the
question “Good Master, what shall I do that I may possess eternal
life?”...... “Enter here: live as we do: this do, and thou shalt
live .” But, irresistibly attracted by the best and purest Cistercian
houses, among which, briefly, Rievaulx, Fountains and Byland
were luminaries, the world flocked to their gates, showered them
with gifts and put a high value on their intercessions. For a few
brief years the light burned brightly and then, perhaps inevitably,
was dimmed by those worldly responsibilities and cares from which
the writers of the earliest codes and constitutions, in their
declaration of the Cistercian ideal, had striven so earnestly to protect
them. Kirkstall, as we have seen, was not°one of the more
distinguished of the white monk houses, nor did any member of
her community, except the shadowy Ralph Haget whose true
home was Fountains, achieve renown either for sanctity or
learning; yet perhaps it may finally be said that, given a life nearly
four centuries long, the disorders which from time to time beset the
abbey were few and possibly it is not unreasonable to suppose that
a decent, if uninspired, observance of the religious life was on the
whole maintained over most of this long period.

™2CPR, 1558-60, p.116; 1566-69, p.439.
Northamptonshire Record Office, Brudenell Map 41.
Knowles, MO, p.220.

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APPENDIX
The Abbots of Kirkstall

The fullest lists of abbots are those given in the Fundacio,
pp.187-88, and in volume V of Dugdale, MA, where the text has
been amended either from the Fundacio or from a common source.
Both lists can be shown to be unreliable in several particulars. They
are used here, therefore, only where no other source 1s available and
with other evidence in support as far as possible. The list given in
VCH, Yorkshire, Ill, p.145, 1s also unreliable as it depends largely
on the list in Dugdale.

A valuable list of the early abbots and a discussion of their dates is
to be found im C. 1. Clay, “Yhe Early Abbots of .Yorkshwe
Cistercian Houses’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, XXXVIII
(1952).

The first and last dates only are given here.

Abbot Dates Source
Alexander 1147. Fundacio, p.174
1182 Fundacio, p.181
Ralph Haget 1182 Fundacio, p.181
(?)1190 Fundacio, p.181n
Lambert c.1190 Fundacio, p.183
c.1193 Fundacio, p.185
Turgisius c.1196 Guisborough Cartulary, Il, ed.

W. Brown, SS, LX X XIX (1894), 41
1199-1203 Guisborough Cartulary, p.330'

Helias de Roche (r202)" ©. 1. Clay, “Whe Barly Abbots of

1204f Yorkshire Cistercian Houses’
Ralph de Newcastle 1204 ree ‘The Early Abbots’

1231 ‘earliest possible date’ (Clay)
Walter (?)1231-33 Clay, “The Early Abbots’
Maurice (i232 = Clay, The Early Abbots’

1249 Dugdale, MA, V, 5287
Adam 1249 Dugdale, MA, V, 528

@ce.1258 Dodsworth, VIlIl, fi.400, 305

Hugh Mikelay 1259 Dugdale, MA, V, 528

1262 Dugdale, MA, V, 528?
Simon 1262, Wuedale MA NV 5238"

1269 Dugdale, MA, V, 528°
William de Leeds 1269 Dugdale, MA, V, 528°

1275 Dugdale WA, VY . 528
Gilbert de Cotles/ 1275 Dugdale, MA, V, 528

Cothes/Cotes/Coates
Henry Kar

Hugh Grimston
John de Bridesale

Walter
William de Driffield

Roger de Leeds

Ralph
John Topcliffe

John de Thornberg
John de Bardsey

William de Stapleton

John de Colyngham

William Grayson/
Graveson

Thomas Wymberslay

Robert Killingbeck
William Stockdale

William Marshall

John Ripley (Brown)

KIRKSTALL ABBEY

1280

1280
1284

1284
1304
1304
Pat
1314
1327
1348
1349

1351
1355
1368
1369
1379
1392
1410
1414

-1433

1452

.1468

1468
1498
1499
ISOI
1507
I§09
1528

T$39

Canivez, lll, 2037

Dugdale, MA, V, 529

Monastic Notes, 1, ed. W. P. Baildon,
Yorkshire Archaeological Society,
Record Series, XVII (1895), 109

Fundacio, p.188

Fundacio, p.206°

Fundacio, p.206

Reg. Greenfield, IV, 111

Reg. Greenfield, II, 183

CPR, 1327-30, p.132

CE. 2275

Calendar of Papal Letters, HI (1897), p.375

CCR, 1354-56, p.225

Monastic Notes, 1, 107

Monastic Notes, I, 113

CPR, 1377-81, p.357

VCH, Yorkshire, Ill, 145

Mem. Fountains, SS, XLII (1863), 207

Calendar of Papal Letters, VI (1904), p.410

Canivez, IV, 388:

Monastic Notes, 1, 107

Monastic Notes, I, 107

Dugdale, MA, V, 529

Testamenta Eboracensia, 1V, SS, LIII
(1869), 256

CLEP 1530, XIV Gile-pios--

‘abbot for nine years’, Fundacio, p.186.

*VCH inserts ‘Martin, occ.1237’ before Maurice, from Feet of Fines, Yorks., file 30,
no.16; 20-23 Henry III. This may be either a misreading of Maurice, or intended
for him. There appears to be no other reference to Abbot Martin and it seems clear
that Maurice was abbot in 1237, CB, p.15. Dugdale (MA, V, 528n) says that
Maurice succeeded in 1222, but this is almost certainly too early. Ralph occurs
10 Henry III, 1.e. 1225-26. Maurice’s dates are confirmed to 1246 by CB, p.24.

7A note to p.528 gives 1159"

APPENDIX 97

4Dugdale, MA, V, 528 gives 40 Henry III, a.pD. 1262. 40 Henry III was 1255-56, but
this is almost certainly too early.

‘Confirmation up to 1267-68 is provided by Dodsworth, VIII, 67.

°VCH inserts ‘Robert, c.1272-75’ before Gilbert, from Baildon, Monastic Notes, 1,

112. Baildon wrote ‘. . . one Robert, formerly abbot of Kirkstall . . . and in the
time of Edward I the said abbot Robert. . .’. No other reference to him has been
found.

7Deposed by general chapter.

°VCH inserts ‘William of Partington, occ.1290’, before John, but no other
reference to him has been found. Hugh made his profession of obedience to
Archbishop Romeyn in 1289, Reg. Romeyn, I, 85.

*Resigned into the hands of the visitors from the general chapter.

‘Dugdale (MA, V, 529) shows Ripley as abbot 1508-09, before Marshall, but there
is no other reference to him. As Ripley was not made sub-deacon until 1513
(Lonsdale, ‘The Last Monks of Kirkstall Abbey’, p.204), this seems unlikely.

"Dugdale (MA, V, 529) gives 1540, but the abbey was dissolved in November

1539.

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Index

Abbreviations: a., abbot; abp, archbishop; Aug., Augustinian; B., Benedictine; bp, bishop;
bro., brother; C., Cistercian: -ch., church; d., duke; Dom.,. Dominican? ¢€., earl: Gilb.,
Gilbértine; K., Kirkstall Abbey;-m., monk; pr, priest; ¥., rector, rectory; s/, Sofi; sr;

Sister: V.., vicar.

Aaron, Jew of Lincoln, 11, 43

Accrington, 18, 34, 37, 44, 49, 67; grange,
Gore. 33

Ackton, 17

Adam), 18; 4. of K., 42, 61, 95; forester, ao;
grangarius, 49, lay-bro., 34

NGeL. 6. 10,20, 25, 20M), 27,228, 40, 62,
ACh, NS: EE. Ol, 30, 73588, 89

advowson, 45

ad quod damnum, inquisition, 29

Ailred, a. of Rievaulx, 2

Mite, TVerD, 7, 10; 82

Airedale, 31

Alainsete, 13

Aldborough, ch., 74

Aldfield (Oldfield), 36, 37; grange, 33, 38,
4I

Miexander, g.67K., 7 andn., 8, bie.47, 54,
$8, 60, 70; 785 95

Alexander III, pope, 72

Allerton, family, v5, 35 Adanyv de; 15;
Nicholas de, 22; Samson dé, ror., 15,
212 Wm de, 22, 36

Allerton. vill, 10, 1-5, 21, 22, 25", 26, 31,
32, 38, 41, 42, 84, OT; grange, 14, 22, 33,
BA AO, AY, Aon., 81, 90

Allerton-by-Bradford, 92

Allerton Gledhow, 16, 30, 31

Arches, Herbert de, 16; Ric. de, 16

Ardsley, 36

Aristotle, $5

Arualey, vill, 16; 30; 36,37, 81, 82

Arthington, 30; nunnery, 86, 90

Aske, Rob., 87

Attewood, Joh., 30, 31

Aubreye, 67

Aumale, abbey, 68, 74

Austhorpe, 17, 37, 38

Austin Canons, I, 61

Baghill, Margaret de, widow of Rob., 50

Bar Gtange, 117... 335-40, 42n., 83, 85, 92

Bardi of Florence, bankers, 39

Bardsey, Joh. de, 96

Bardsey, 10; 20, 23, 245-30, 39, 44,6F, 62,
FO, Bl, 63,04, O1

Barkston, Ric. de, 22

Barnoldswick (Bernolfwic), 12, 13, 34, 37,
40n., 74, 83, 91; the community at, 2-11
Passifits “WA, WT, $4,972; Yen. WO. 72;
grange, 41

Bateson, Ric., m. of K., 89

Bath, B. Abbey, 86

Baxter, Wm, 30, 31

Bayeux, Thos of, abp of York, 1

Beaulieu, C. abbey, 61n., 62, 70

Beckett Park, vii, 11n.

Bede, Venerable, 56

Beeston, family, 17

Beeston, 17, 37, 39

Bendy, Eliz., 29

Benedict XII, pope, 60

Benedictines, 1, 12, 60, 61, 65

Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint, 2, 33, 58, 86

Bertlett, Thos, m. of K., 90

Berwick, Hen. de, acolyte, 72

Bessacar, Pet. de, 21; Wm de, 20

Bessacar, 11; 22,37, 41; orange, 20, 30

Betti of Lucca, merchants, 38, 39

Bilson, John, $7, 59

Bilton, Hugh de, m. of K., 71

Birkin, r. of, 89

Bishopthorpe, York (Thorpe), ton., 19, 22

Black Death, 43, 45, $3

Blackburnshire, 12, 64, 67

Blacker, 70, 78

Blacko (Blacho), 13

Blakebroc, 13

Blyth, ch., 71

Bolling, 17, 22

Bolton-in-Wharfedale, priory, 1, 35, 73,
86

Bony, J., 59

Bowet, Hen., abp of York, 71

Bowland (Bolland), 17, 33, 66

Bracewell, 4.13% 50, $2; ch., 4) 20,63, Fr,
Wg IBS Von (0855 Von, Vie

Brackenley, 15

Bramhope, 19 and n., 37, 75, 76

Bramley, vil, 16, 17, 26, 36, 48, 81, 83,
85, 89

Bramley Fall, stone from, 58

Brearey, family, 30; Joh. de, 30, 31; Rob.
de, 18, 26

100

Brearey, 10, 18; 26 and #., 30; 41, 42%
grange, 18, 33, 40, 42, 8I

Bridesale (Birdsall), family, 48; Joh. de, a.
Of K., 48.72, 96; 1m: Of K:, 48, $2,971;
Thos de;.48,. 71, 72; Wm de, 48

Bridlington, 1, 72

Brighton, Wm de, 31

Brogden, 4, 10, 13

Bromholm, abbey, 86

Brown(e) (Ripley), Joh., prior of K., 85,
87, 88, 96

Brown, Ric:, 30, 32: Wii, 30, 32

Browne, Gilb., m. of K., 85

Bruce, de, family, 19

Bull, Joh., 64

Burdon, Beatrix, w. of Hugh, 22; Hugh de,
22; Rob. de, 27

Burdon, 22, 26

Burley, 7, 1in., 83, 92; erage, 334. 40;
Green, 7

Burn Moor, 13

Burnley, 17

Burstall, B. priory, 1, 52, 68, 74 and n., 83
and n.

Byland, °C: abbey, 2,56, 58. 78, 93;-a..0f,

70
Bytham, C. abbey, 2

Calder, C. abbey, 3, 78

Calverley, Jol..de, 29, 32; Walter de, 53

Calverley, 17

Cambridge, Jesus Coll., 55; Sidney Sussex
Colle $5

Cantley, 20

Cardigan, ¢. of, 7, 92

Cawood, 72

Chaloner, Sir Thos, 91

Chambers, Joh., 82; Wm, s. of Joh., 82

Chapel Allerton, 15, 83; grange, 81

Chapman, Joh., 30

Chester, constable of, 68; Ranulf, e. of, 3

Chicksand, Gilb. house, 56

Chronicles (of Kirkstall
Kirkstall, abbey

Cistercians, 12, 38, 61, 62 and #., 93;
administration, 47, $51, 66, 68-69, 72;
agrarian organization, 33, 37, 41, 45;
architecture, $7, 58, 60; expansion, I-4;
general chapter, 2, 3, 39, 42, 43, 49, 50,
§2. and ft. $7; 65, 68; 69; °70;-77,..78;,. 79

Citcaux, C2 abbey, 27, 69,03; m. of, 78

Claighton, family, 85

Chirvaux, C. abbey. 2, $8,935.14. .0f, $0,
69

Cleckheaton, 21

Cleeve,-C. abbey, 60

Clement V, pope, 75

Clessaghe, 13

Clifford, family, 79

Abbey), see

KIRKSTALL ABBEY

Clifford, 37, 40, 49, 82; manor, 48

Chitheroe, 23°52

Coates. 4; 13, 91

Coggeshall, Ralph de, 53

Coik, Jew of London, 44

Collinghami, 19, 20, 23 24,. 305.44, O8 62,
FOUSL, OA; 40k

Colvin, H. M., 66

Colyngham, Joh. de, a. of K., 50, 69, 96

Combermere, abbey, 78

Compton, grange, 34, 40, 41

Cookridge, 10 and n., 18, 20, 37, 38, 81,
83; grange, 40

Coombe, C. abbey, 78

Corbridge, Thos of, abp of York, 70, 71

corrodians, 65; corrodies, 52; see also
Kirkstall, abbey

Cotles (Coates, Cotes, Cothes), Gilb. de,
43, 49, 95, 96

Coucher Book (of Kirkstall Abbey), 6, 8,
20, 28, 20,38, $4, 62; 63% 64, 68,760

courts, of Augmentations, 90; church, 23;
royal, 22, 23; wapentake, 22

Couthorpe, Margaret de, 32; Wm de, 32

Coverdale (Colredene), 13

Cowhird, Hen., the, 32

Cranmer, Thos, abp of Canterbury, 92; s.
of, 92

Craven, 3, O41

Critinns, P.,. 46

Cromwell, Thos, 85 and n., 90, 91

Dakyn, Joh., r. of Kirby Ravensworth, 87

Dalton, Rob. de, forester, 64

Danby, Sir Chris., 87

Darcy, Thes, Lord, 85 .and n, 87; Sir
Arthur, s. of Thos, 86, 91

Darrington, 24, 28, 41; grange, 81

David I, king of Scotland, 3, 5, 16

Dean-Grange, 19, 34, 40, 41, 42 ands.

Denholm-Young, N., 39

Dieulacres, C. abbey, 3, 78

Dissolution of the Monasteries, 15, 18, 19,
20, 34,30, 47,48; 57, 02) 73,744 ol
88, 90, 92

Dodsworth, Roger, 54

Domesday Survey, 16, 17, 35

Doncaster, 20,.22,.23,, 407-079

Donnelly, J. T., 42

Dover, 52

Driffield, Joh. de, m. of K., 55, 84; Wm de,
a. of K., 55n., 64, 96

Durham, bp of, 41; cathedral, 1

East Burdon, 18
East Marton, 4
Eastburn, 26

INDEX

Eecupy 275-30) 8; 85

Edward I, king, 32, 44, 48, 54, 63, 65, 79;
Edw. Il, king, 45, 63; Edw. IIl, king, 63,
64, 75

Ekerlays, Ric., §2

Elam, grange, 33, 34, 40, 41

Eland, Hen. de, 53; Ric. de, 6

Eleanor, sr. of Edward III, 63

Elfwinetrop, 4, 10, 13

Ely, bp of, 54

Embsay, priory, I

Eugenius IV, pope, 77

Eutropius, 56

Everingham, family, 76; Adam de, 28

Farrer, W.,/13

Fawcett, Wm, 85

FitzAsketin, Rob., 21, 23

FitzDuncan, Wm, 3, §

Fitzgerald, Wm, 17

FitzHubert, Rob., 19, 22

FitzHugh, Hugh, 20

FitzNigel, Hugh FitzHugh, 20

FitzPeter, Adam, 10, 20, 76

FitzRobert, Hugh, 22

Flanders-Guelden, Reg., c. of, 63

Florence, 38

Folifayt Meadow, 91

Forde, C. abbey, 60

Fors, 2,5

Fountains, C. abbey, 40, 53, 54, 56, 66, 76,
78293, abbots, 4,-5, 44, 49, St, 69; 70,
79, see also under individual names (Hen.;
Huby; Ripon, Joh.; Rob.; Thirsk, Wm,
Thornton, Rob.); architecture, 58, 59,
60; demesne, 91; foundation, 2, 5;
foundation of K. from, 5, 7, 8-9, 34, 47,
AS; prior (Alex:), 5, 8; site, 91

Foxcroft de Cristall, Thos, 56

Frances, sr of e. of Sussex, 92

Francis, Saint, of Assisi, 86

Frank, Edmund, 31

iniats, 27

Fundacio Abbathie de Kyrkestall, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9
and’ W., §O, LI, 15, 26"), 43-485 53, $4,
62, 63

Fymere, Sim. de, m. of -K., 71

Gailmers, 13

Gascoigne, Sir Wm, 90

Gascony, 44, 45

Gason, Willelmus, m. of K., 57

Germanus, Saint, 56

Giffard, Joh., steward, 64; Walter de, abp of
York, $1,-71

Gilbert of Sempringham, Saint, 18n.

Gilkirk, ch., 72°74, 83

Gowshill, Sim. of, canon, 56

IO!

Grace Dieu, C. abbey, 86

granges, see Kirkstall, abbey

Grayson (Graveson), Wm, a. of K., 96

Great Schism, 78 and n.

Greenfield, Wm, abp of York, 53, 70, 71, 75

Gresham, Sir Ric., 91

Grimston, Hugh, a. of K., 43, 48, $4, 69,
77, 90; tt. of K-48, SO, 71

Grosseteste, bp, 27, 40

Guisborough, 1; priory, 79

Guiseley, Wm de, $3n.

Guiseley, 89

Haget, Bertram, 48; Ralph, a. of K., 47;
48, 49, 51, $3, 62, 93, 95
Hagger, Wm, 32; Cecily, w.

Hall, Geo., 90

Haverholm, Gilb. priory, 2, 19, 75, 76

Hawksworth, wood, viii, 7, 83

Hawton, Wm, m. of K., 71

Haye, Miles de la, 51, 69

Hayles, C. abbey, 27

Flaynian, Pet., 92

Haywarde, Rolande, 92

Headingley (Heddyngley), Chris. de, 56

Headingley, vaii, 9, 24, 20,, 32; $5; 02;
Hall, 89; manor of, 21, 29, 32; North
Lane, 7; St Michael’s Lane, 7

Healaugh Park, C. abbey, 48, 91

Heneage, Sir Thos, 91

Henry, a. of Fountains, 69

Henry the Cowhird, 30, 31, 32; Mary, w.
of Hen., 31

Henry I king, 1on.; 11#., 12, 15, 19,355;
AO, 52, OF, 62 and, 65, 67, © of Anjou,
3; Hen. III, king, 61n., 65; Hen. VI, king,
63; Hen. VII, king, 73; Hen. VIII, king,
g2

Henryson, Joh., m. of K., 89

Heptonstall, Edw., m. of K., 89

Hesywell, smithy, 36, 83

of Wm, 32

Hexham, 1

Fill, B. D., 28

Historia Anglorum (Henry of Huntingdon),
56

Historia Regum Brittaniae (Geoffrey of

Monmouth), 56
Holderness, 68, 74
Holme Cultram, C. abbey, 2, 78
Hooton Pagnell, 10, 27; grange, 33), 63
lope, W. HSt I, $7
Horbury, 30; Wm de, 30
Horsforth, vil, 7, lO and'#., fo, 20, 22, 28,
BO 30 357 BO; 37 5a 70; Ol, 85,000
Hospitallers, 26
Howveden, Hen. de, m: of 'K., 71
Hoyland, Geof. de, 56
Huby, a. of Fountains, 60
Huddersfield, 82, 89

102 KIRKSTALL ABBEY

Hugh, m. of K., 4, 53, 54
Hull, 39, 87

Hulton, C. abbey, 78
Humphrey, lay-bro. of K., 34
Huncoat, 44

Hunslet, 69

Huntingdon, Hen. of, 56

Ile de France, 59
Insula, Sibil de, anchoress, 79
ironworks, 89, 9I

Jackson, Anthony, m. of K., 89

James, clerk, 78

Jarrow, B. abbey, 1

Jeevaulx,:C..abbey,, 2; 59, 78, 86; ax. of,.87

Jews, 43

John, king, 23, 24, 49, 61, 62 and n., 65, 68;
m. of K., 50

John the Damascene, $5

Jordan, cardinal, 4, 50

Kar, Hen., a. of K.,. 96
Keighley, 19, 20, 26, 28, 75, 76
Kempe, Joh., abp of York, 70
Killingbeck, family, 48n.;Joh., 84; Rob., a.
of K., 48, 84, 96; Wm, 31
Kilnsea, ch., 74
KIRKS PALE. 7.20.10, 12,15. 19.20). 35;
37) 435.55
C. ABBEY
abbots, 48-50, $1, $2, 65, 71, 76-80,
95-96; election of, 66, 69, 70, 71;
see also under individual names
(Adam; Alexander; Bardsey, Joh.
de; Bridesale (Birdsall), Joh. de;
Colyngham, Joh. de; _ Cotles
(Cothes, Cotes, Coates), Gilb. de;
Driffield, Wm de; Grayson (Grave-
son), Wm; Grimston, Hugh;
Haget, Ralph; Kar, Hen.; Killing-
beck, Rob.;-Lambert; Leeds, Rog.
de; Leeds, Wm de; Marshall, Wm;
Maurice; Mikelay, Hugh; New-
castle, Ralph de; Ralph; Ripley
(Brown(e)), Joh.; Roche, Helias de;
Simon; Stapleton, Wm de; Stock-
dale, Wm; Topcliffe, Joh.; Tur-
gisius; Thornberg, Joh. de; Walter
(1213-33); Walter (1314); William;
Wyberslay, Thos)
annuitants, 90
Barnoldswick, the community at,
4-II passim, 14, 47, 54, 72
buildings, 11, $7, 66; abbots
lodgings, 51, 67; church, 8, I1, 21,
$3, 60, 66; cellarium, 11; chapter-
house, 11, $5, $8, $9; cloister,
Fi, 55; 60; dorniutery,..s9, 60;

gatehouse, 53, 88; guest-house, 60,
Fil; Sntimnary,» 251.1100 "and ot.
kitchen, 11; library, 55, 56; meat-
kitchen, $1, 60; retectory, 14,47,
51, 60; tower, 60

cellarer, <1

chapter, $1

charters, 20-27 passim, 55; of Hen. de
Lacy, 7-9

Chronicles (of K. abbey), the ‘Long’,
54; the ‘Short’, 54

corrodians, $2, 63; corrodies, 68

economic organization, 33-46,
81-84, see also granges, lay-
brothers

external relations, 61-80

financial difficulties, 34, 43-46, 52-53

foundation, 4-I1 passim

granges, 11, 20; 33, 34, 41425.45, 0
see also under individual names
(Accrington; Aldfield (Oldfield);
Allerton; Bar; Barnoldswick; Bes-
sacar;, Brearey; -Burley;) Chapel
Allerton; Cliviger; | Compton;
Cookridge; Dean; Elam; Hooton
Pagnell; Loscoe (Loftesclogh);
Micklethwaite; Moor; Nether;
New; New Lathe; Roundhay;
Rushton (Riston, — Risseton));
villeins, 35 and n.; see also lay-
brothers

incidents, feudal, 28 and n.; escheat,
29; wardship, 28

indiscipline, 49-50, $3

intellectual activities, 53-57

internal life, 47-60

king, relations with, 61-66; royal
protection, 43, 44, 45, 52n., 62n.,
65, 77

land: assarts, 21, 35, 36; boundary
marks, .36;, cultures, 221, \occ;
demesne, 27, 36, 41, 81,267,102;
endowments of, 4, 6, 7-II, 12-20,
27-32; exploitation of, 12, 35-37,
41-43; tenure, implications of,
20-27 (fee-farm), 20, 23, 68, 81, 83
(frankalmoin), 23, 24, 28, 61, 64
(military), 32, 61 (warranty), 26,
27; see also K., services

lay-brothers,. 5,6, 95, Tis33ses4nuas-
47, $0, 63, 67, see also under indi-
vidual names (Adam; Humphrey;
Norman; Robert; Stephen; Walter)

leases, 41, 42, 45, 82, 85 andn., 90, 91

literary remains, 54-57

mills, 83

minerals, 16, 83; rights to, 36

monks, and the surrender of the
House, 84, 88-90; ordination as

INDEX

priests, 71; recruitment of, 50-51,

see also under individual names
(Bateson, - Ric.; ~ Birtlett, Theos;
Driffield; Joh.; Fymere, Sim. de;
Gason, Willelmus; Grimston,
Hugh de; Hawton, Wm de;
Henryson, Joh.; Heptonstall,

Edw.; Hoveden, Hen. de; Hugh;
Jackson, Anthony; Joh.; Leeds,
Wm de; Lofthouse, Gab.; Lupton,
Wm; Mason, Paul; Pepper, Thos;
Sandall, Edw.; Serlo; Stamborn,
Joh.; York, Wm of)

patron, 44, 49; relations with, 66-68;
see also, de Lacy; Lancaster, Joh. of
Gaunt, d. of

prior, 51, 84, see also Brown(e), Joh.;
sub-prior, 84

rents, 21, 23, 24 and #., 25,27, 20) 30,
41, 42, 44, 45, 62, 63, 81, 84; -rolls,
34, $5, 81, 85

seal, 10

secular church, relations with, 70-74

services, 23, 24, 27, 28, 32; boon-
work, 83-84; forinsec, 24n., 25;
knights’ fee, 25, 26; mulitary, 23,
25; puture, 64; scutage, 26, 28; suit
of court, 28

sheep-farming, 37-40, 43

sheepfold, 20, 37, 38

smithies, 36, 83 and n.

surrender of the House, 82, 84-93

passim

tithe, 18; 23, DOr, 45, 9595055; 72, 75.
86

visitations, abbots’, 44, 47, 68-69;
abps’; 70

wool-production, 37-40
see also Coucher Book (of Kirkstall
Abbey); Fundacio Abbathie de
Kyrkestall
Kirkstall Ing, 92
Kirkstead, 2
Knowles, D., 41, 86, 88

Racy, family, 3,-5, 1264,-67,-68; Alice de,
86 Hen<de, 4, 6,7, 8, 9; to and ., 11,
iD ee laNol So) 10) 77a hard serge 1S OnnOSs (OO;
68; Hen. de, e. of Lincoln, 67; [lbert de,
3, 16; Joh. de, constable of Chester, 67;
Joh. de, e. of Lincoln, 18, 33, 64; Rob., 6,
Ol, 17., 16421527, 37000,.07, 68; Rog.
de, 7, 20, 62; Rog:; s. of Joh., 67; estates,
66, 67; fee, 10, 35

Ramibert, 4.0, Kay 0; 17, 33, 345 35140, 49, 95

Lancashire, 36, 44, 64

Lancaster, family, 67; d. of, 66; Gaunt, Joh.
Gf) d. of, 50,68; Hen., d..0f, 68; Thos, e.
of, 64, 86

103

Lancaster, 23

Lastingham, I

lay-brothers, 33, 34, 42, 45, 46; see also
Kirkstall, abbey

Layton, Ric., 85, 88

Leathley, family, 19; Hugh, 19; Wm, 19, 22

Ledston (Ledeston),. Rog. de, 17,22, 25

Leeds, Rog. de, a. of K., 96; Wm,a. of K.,
95; Win, m. of K., 71

Leeds, 7, 15, 35, SOn7 1, 75,281, 80, Ole ch.
86, 89; parish of, 51, 53

Legh, Dr Thos, 85

Leigh, Gilb., 90

Lepton, Wm de, 30

Liége, University of, 56

Lincoln; ¢. of, 17; 40, 43, 44, Hens, e. of,
67; JON jvc: Of. 18; 335 64

Lincolnshire, 3, 18, 87

Lindisfarne, abbey, 1

Liversedge, 91

Lofthouse, Gab., m. of K., 89

Lofthouse, 16

London, 63

Longvillers, Eudo de, 21; Joh. de, 21

Loscoe (Loftesclogh), 17, 41; grange, 65
and 75, 91 .

Lupton, Wm, m. of K., 85, 89

Luttrell, family, 18n., 33

Lyngarth, 82

Magna Carta, 28

Maitland, F. W., 23), 26

Malcolm IV, king of Scotland, 3

Margam, C. abbey, 62

Marshall, family, 31; Chris., 48, 84;
Matilda, mother of Ric., 30, 32; Ric., 30,
31, 32; Wm, a. of K., 48,60, 84, 96

Marton, 5, 135,15, 73

Mary, Saint, 86

Mary I, queen, 91

Mason, Hen., collector of rents, 91; Paul, m.
of K., 90

Matthew, family, 85

Mauleverer, family, 19; Sir Joh., 29; Rob.,
21

Maunice, aiiof KX,, 42x 95

Meanwood, 15

Meaux, C. abbey, 40, 45

Melrose, C. abbey, 2, 60

Merevale, C. abbey, 78

Meschin, family, 19, 35

Micklethwaite, 19, 20, 33, 35, 61, 62, 68;
grange, 40, 49, 52, 61, 67, 91

Middleton-in-Pickering, 74, 90; rectory,

83
Middop (Midhop), 13
Midgley, family, 85
Mikelay, Hugh, a. of K., 95
Mikelker, 36

104

Millerts, Pet., 20; Wm de, 20

Monk Bretton, 17

Monkwearmouth, I

Montfort, Sim. de, 79

Moor Allerton, 15

Moor Grange, 15; 33,40, 41, 427. 92

Moreville, Herbert de, 19, 61, 62n.; Ric.
de, 20, 62

Morley, 17

mortmain, licences to alienate in, 29-32,
63

Morwyck, Wm de, 32

Mowbray, Rog. de, 61, 62

Murdac, Hen., abp of York, 5,89, 15, 72

Mustel, Rog., 18 and n., 20; Wm, 18, 20

Nether Grange, 34, 41, 42n., 81
Netley, C. abbey, 61n.

Nevill, Sir Rob., 83, 89, 90

New Grange, IIn., 15, 33

New Lathe, grange, 34, 81
Newcastle, Ralph de, a. of K., 48, 95
Newhall, 17, 22, 26, 33,81, 92
Newlay Bridge, 7, 16

Newminster, C. abbey, 2, 3, 60
Nicholas, Pope, Taxation of (1291), 74
Nigel, freeman of Horsforth, 19
Norman, lay-bro. of K., 34

IN@eth, J: We, -Col, viii
Northampton, 23

Northcrofts, 22

Northives, Wm, m. of K., 89
Norwich, bp of, 22

Nostell, Aug. priory, I, 17

obedientary system, $1

Oldfield (Aldfield), 10; grange, 33, 38, 41

Osmondthorpe, 17, 37

Otley, 50, 89

Owthorne, ch., 74

Oxford, 57; Bodleian Library, 56; Corpus
Christi Coll., 56; St Bernard’s Coll., $7

Oxgill, 13

Pakenham, Rob., 92

parliament, 29, 31, 79

Patent Rolls, 64

Paull, <ch:, 74

Paver, Bernard, 91; Ric., 91

Paynel, Win de, 1ov., 18, 19, 26

Paynel fee, 18-19, 35

Peitevin, family, 15; Alex. de, 15; Reg. de,
20; Thos de, 15; Wim de, 7,°6 and n., 10,
£5, 25,20

Pepper, Joh., 85; Thos, s. of Joh., m. of K.,
83, 85, 88, 89, 90

Peter, lay-bro., 34

Pickering, Dom. friar, 87

Pikedelawe, 13

KIRKSTALL ABBEY

Pilgrimage of Grace, 82, 85n., 87, 88

Pistoia, 38

Pistokis, Jas. de, wool-merchant, 38, 44

Plucknett, T) PF. T.; 28

Pontefract, Renier de, 41n.

Pontefract, 17, 32, 41.,,44, $0) $1, 67, 85;
87; castle, 84, 87; school, 2; seneschal, 16

Pontigny, a. of, 77

Potternewton, 16, 17, 48, 84

Poulton, 3

Poyd, Wm, 30

Pratica della Mercatura (Pegolotti), 39

Premonstratensians, 66

Pudsey, 17, 26, 38, 91

Quia Emptores, Statute of, 27, 32

Ralph, a. of K., 96

Ramsden, Wm, gI

Rawdon, 19, 24

Reinville, family, 16; Adam de, 16; Wm de
(I), 16; Wm de (II), 16

rents, see Kirkstall, abbey

Revesby, C. abbey, 2

Rewley, C. abbey, $7

Richard I, king, 43, 65; Ric. II, king, 29, $4

Richmond (Yorks.), 88; ch., 88

Riddlesden, 37

Rievaulx, C. abbey, 2, 40, 56.48) 76,478,
93; a. of, 70, (Aalred), $2

Ripley (Brown(e)), Joh., a. of K., 85, 87,
88, 96

Ripon, Joh., a. of Fountains, 69

Ripon, 86

Rivers, Met. of, lady of Harewood, 76

Robert, a. of Fountains, 48, 53; lay-bro. of
K., 34

Rochdale, manor, 6

Roche, Helias de, a: of'K., Ton; 20,48, ag,
62, 63, 67, 95

Roche, C> abbey, 2, 48,58; a: of, 78

Roches, Pets dé, bp; 61n:

Rodley, 92

Roger, abp of York, 9; pr. of York, 19

Romeyn, Joh. le, abp of York, 71, 72

Rookes, Ric. 3228 Wim, 32

Rothelay, Thos de, 64

Roundhay, vill, 10, 15, 17, 37, 44; grange,
13, 335 36, Park va

Roydes Hall, 32

Rufford, C. abbey, 2

Rushton, Rob. de, 73

Rushton (Riston, Risseton), 17, 37, 41, 66;
grange, 33

Salterforth, 4
Samson, Adam, 21-
Sandal, vicar of, 50, 63

INDEX

Sandall, family, 85; Edw., m of K., 85n.,
88, 89

Sandford, Joh., 92

Savignac abbeys, 2, 3

Savile, Baron, 92; Hen. of Banke, 56; Rob.,
$7 92: ‘Sir Hen. 87; 02; Viscount, 92

Savoy, Hospital of the, 91

Sawley (Salley), C. abbey, 2, 5, 70, 78, 88,
Ol: 2. Of, 87

Saylbes, Joh., 44

Scarborough, 87

schools, Beverley, 2; Pontefract, 2; York,
I

Scot, Joh... 31

Scots, 3,5, 45

Seactott, 16, 17, 24, 35, 37, 38, 44

Selby, B. abbey, 1

Sergaunt, Thos, 50

Serlo, m. of Fountains, 54; m. of K., 70, 78

Services, 23, 24, 27, 28, 32; scutage, 26, 28;
forinsec, 24n., 25; military, 23, 25; suit
of court, 28

Shadwell, 16, 17, 44

Simon, @. of K., 95

Skeckling, ch., 74

Skipton, honour of, 5, 13

Skyrack, 22

Smaragdus, 56

Smeaton, Alan de, 17

Smeaton, 17

Smuth, A. Hi 13; 2. B:, 82

smithies, 36, 78, 83 and n.

Snydale, Hugh de, 17

Snydale; 17,21, 24,3°7,°07,-9%; grange, 17,
23 and f., al, 42n.

Somerville, Wm, 16, 35, 38

Spofforth, 89; Joh. Wm of, $3

Spyrard, Wm, 30, 32

Stainton, 78

Stamborn, Joh., m. of K., 55

Standard, Battle of the, 3, 5

Stanlaw, C. abbey, 68n.

Stanley, C. abbey, 78

Stapleton, family, 16, 17; Rob. de, 16; Wm
dé; a. of K., 48, 96

Stapleton, 17

Stephen, king, 3, 4, 6, 9; lay-bro., 63

Stirling, castle, 63

Stockdale, Wm, a. of K., 96

Stokton, Nich. de, 73

St Patrick, Geof. de, 20

Stutevill, Wm de, 25n.

Sussex, e. of, 88, 92; Francés, sr of, 92

Swineshead, C. abbey, 2

Tadcaster, 89

Talde, Bernard, 39, 44

Tempest, family, 73; Ric. de, 72
Templar, Knights, 17, 19, 75, 79

105

Temple Newsam, 17

Thame, a. of, 78

Theolocus, a. of, 69

Thirsk, Wm, a. of Fountains, 87

Thomas, chancellor, 36

Thornberg, Joh. de, a. of K., 76, 96; vicar of
Sandal, 50, 63

Thornton, Rob., a. of Fountains, 47, 69

Thornton, 74

Thorpe, see Bishopthorpe

Thorpe, nr Knaresborough, 50

Thurstan, abp of York, 2

Tickhill, so

Tintern, C. abbey, 57

Dopehtte,-Johy, @. of K, $0, 67, 78,96

Terrenton, Mica, de, 52. 71, 72

Toulouse, Emma de, 17

Toulston, Hugh de, 17

Turgisius, a. of K., 48, 49, 69, 79, 95

Upper Hoyland, 70, 78
Ushaw, St Cuthbert’s Coll., 56

Valor Ecclesiasticus, 85
Vavasour, Hugh, 26

Walter, a. of K (¢1231-33), 05; aof-K.
(1314), 71, 96; bp of Coventry and Lich-
field, 75; lay-bro. of K., 49

Walter, Fen, 16; Rob., 24

wapentake, court, 22; fine, 83

Warden, C. abbey, 2

Watson, Jennett, 32

Waverley, C. abbey, 1, 58, 78

Webster, Wm, 30, 32

Weetwood, 36, 83, 89, 91

Wentbridge, 67

West Armley, 28

West Burdon, 18

West Headingley, 7, 15, 81

Westminster, 27, 63

Wetecroft, Ric. de, 22

Wetecroft, 21, 22, 26

Wether Grange, 81

Wetherby, so

Whalley, ‘C. abbey, 60, 78, 88; a. of, 87

Wharfe, river, 35

Wheathead (Weethead), 13

Whitby, B. abbey, 1

Wigton, 22

William,-a-0f K., 77; s. of Alex..'15

Winchester, bp of, 61

Withernsea, 78

Wolf, Reynold, 92

Woodward, G. W. O., 82, 86, 90

wool, 37, 39, 40, 45; -merchants, 38, 39;
-trade, 38

Wortley, 30

Wyke, 38

Wymberslay, Thos, a. of K., 96

106

Yeadon, 30

York, Wm of, m. of K., 71

York, I, 2, 10, 11, 21) 23, 30,.32,740n..50,
75, 76, 83, 87, 89, 91; abps of, see under
individual names (Bayeux, Thos of;
Bowet, Hen.; Corbridge, Thos of;
Giffard, Walter de; Greenfield, Wm;
Kempe, Joh.; Murdac, Hen.; Roger;
Thurstan; Romeyn, Joh. de; Zouche,
Win wde da); deam and ichaptery. 75;

KIRKSTALL ABBEY

diocese, 75; Holy Trinity Priory, 1, 18,
$15 75s.<79» "86, 91; Micklegate,519;
province, 75; St Leonard’s Hospital, 19,
50 and n., 75, 92; St Mary’s Abbey, 1, 2,
5, 54, 79; school, 1; sheriff, 53

Yorkshire, 3, 6.18, 44, 45, $0%58,)64, 74,
$2, 87

Zouche, Wm de la, abp of York, 73

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